Missing VS Code keybindings for duplicating and moving lines

[ryanwinchester]

Check for existing issues

• Completed

Describe the feature

A) Moving lines or selections

Was partially mentioned in #6079 but not addressed (and I haven't seen another issue yet with these ones).

alt-up move current line (or selected lines) up
alt-down move current line (or selected lines) down

B) Duplicating lines or selections

alt-shift-up duplicate current line (or selected lines) above
alt-shift-down duplicate current line (or selected lines) below

If applicable, add mockups / screenshots to help present your vision of the feature

VS Code behaviour on duplicating and moving line(s):

Screen.Recording.2023-06-14.at.9.56.43.PM.mov

[ryanwinchester]

Update, found similar in Zed's Sublime Bindings

Found the line-moving in Zed's Sublime Bindings as:

{
    "ctrl-cmd-up": "editor::MoveLineUp",
    "ctrl-cmd-down": "editor::MoveLineDown",
}

And The duplicating (alt-shift-down) would be similar to Zed's Sublime binding: "cmd-shift-d": "editor::DuplicateLine"

So now I have this

// ~/.config/zed/keymap.json
[
  // Additional VS Code bindings...
  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "alt-up": "editor::MoveLineUp",
      "alt-down": "editor::MoveLineDown",
      "alt-shift-down": "editor::DuplicateLine"
    }
  }
]

This actually covers most of my use-cases. Even though it's not smart with indents like vscode (see screen-recording above), it's not the end of the world.

When #5448 drops I can probably main Zed without pain.

[hovsater]

@ryanwinchester can I close this one out given that you found the commands you were looking for? There's definitely some room for improvement, but the core functionality should all be there. 🙂

[ryanwinchester]

@hovsater I left it in case we had something to track with being smart about indentation levels and “duplicate above” functionality, but I’m okay with closing. 👍

[OzzyCzech]

There is also missing CMD+D for line duplications

[
  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "alt-up": "editor::MoveLineUp",
      "alt-down": "editor::MoveLineDown",
      "alt-shift-down": "editor::DuplicateLine",
      "cmd-d": "editor::DuplicateLine"
    }
  }
]

[designbyadrian]

@hovsater Maybe this deserves a new card, but after editor::DuplicateLine, the editor::MoveLineUp and editor::MoveLineDown commands no longer work. Clicking outside the text brings the functionality back. So, in my humble opinion, the task isn't done because the functionality is faulty.

[LinusU]

Slightly related, but I'm also trying to copy over all my VS Code bindings and since I couldn't find "move line up" or something similar in the documentation, I found this thread very helpful!

I also missed cmd-shift-k to delete the current line, it was easy to add:

  "cmd-shift-k": "editor::DeleteLine"

[damnsamn]

@ryanwinchester can I close this one out given that you found the commands you were looking for? There's definitely some room for improvement, but the core functionality should all be there. 🙂

@hovsater I'd not consider the core functionality to be there currently.

In VS code, you can alt-shift-up as well as alt-shift-down to duplicate lines in those corresponding directions. If there were a way to chain multiple functions for one binding (eg. ["editor::DuplicateLine", "editor::MoveLineUp"], I think that would mean the core functionality is accounted for.

[carlosbaraza]

It may sound simplistic, but I think these missing shortcuts are a major blocker for adoption by VS Code users. A few of my colleagues completely dismissed Zed because it just takes some muscle memory to get used to the new shortcuts. A better strategy for Zed would be to fully match all the VS Code shortcuts out of the box, if not by default, with a simple button to get all the bindings setup. This will remove a big part of the friction.

[SomeoneToIgnore]

We have dedicated keymaps for other editors, including VSCode.
People had added more bindings to those in PRs like #7464 (that was for Intellij, but the idea is exactly the same), so, presumably, somebody can come and add those into the VSCode keymap too?
Seems like it would need less characters typed than for any of the messages above.

[ryanwinchester]

We have dedicated keymaps for other editors, including VSCode. People had added more bindings to those in PRs like #7464 (that was for Intellij, but the idea is exactly the same), so, presumably, somebody can come and add those into the VSCode keymap too? Seems like it would need less characters typed than for any of the messages above.

Is there both a duplicate line above and duplicate line below now? Or still just "editor::DuplicateLine"?

[SomeoneToIgnore]

Oh, that's the point, I see (sorry, starting to forget what VSCode actions are at this point).
We have exactly one duplicate line action now:

zed/crates/editor/src/actions.rs

Line 154 in 7956a9a

DuplicateLine,

and that one is duplicating things below.

It feels relatively simple to add another action (and a test) to duplicate above too, but indeed it's more work and characters typed than any of comments above 🙂

[ryanwinchester]

I will learn rust someday, but it's not today 😅

[carlosbaraza]

I didn't know Zed had some keymap files for other editors. Maybe those keybinding options could be added to a menu where a simple non contributor user could see the list of default available keymaps to quickly choose their preferred keymap without having to dig inside the Zed GitHub issues + Zed codebase + figure out how to do key bindings?

At this point I am not a code contributor to Zed, so the best I can do is to contribute to the discussion, if that is something that is appreciated by the community. These code changes might be obvious/easy to the committed contributor, but newcomers could spend a significant amount of time to resolve them. Maybe their two cents are still valuable to the community?

[SomeoneToIgnore]

Discoverability is always a problem for developers, so that's why I always ask external people to add to docs: they know it better.

For me, that was "obvious" (not for others, as it's clear to see) as there's a cmd-shift-p universal "execute everything" thing that contains base keymaps:

and also there are docs on the topic: https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/blob/main/docs/src/configuring_zed__key_bindings.md

At this point, I'm clueless what else could be done to make it more visible, but anybody is welcome to bring ideas on making things better.

[josfaber]

Added cmd-shift-k also

[
  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "alt-up": "editor::MoveLineUp",
      "alt-down": "editor::MoveLineDown",
      "alt-shift-down": "editor::DuplicateLine",
      "cmd-d": "editor::DuplicateLine",
      "cmd-shift-k": "editor::DeleteLine"
    }
  }
]

[JosephTLyons]

I think these have landed in Zed v0.126.0, so I'll close this out.

[Moshyfawn]

I think these have landed in Zed v0.126.0, so I'll close this out.

I'm not sure that editor::DuplicateLine fulfils this requirement, if that's what you're referring to.

[Banyc]

@Moshyfawn I have investigated a bit and i see this:

In the future release it will be alt-shift-up and alt-shift-down.

[Moshyfawn]

In the future release it will be alt-shift-up and alt-shift-down.

I see! Thanks for the info, it does make sense 👍

[acusti]

for anyone who stumbles across this issue because they were used to the previous non-vscode-based key bindings (which i believe were based on atom’s key bindings) and they want those key bindings back, open your key bindings config (Zed › Settings… › Open Key Bindings or from the command-palette, zed: open keymap) and paste in the following config:

[
    {
        "context": "Editor",
        "bindings": {
            "ctrl-shift-k": "editor::DeleteLine",
            "cmd-shift-d": "editor::DuplicateLine",
            "ctrl-cmd-down": "editor::MoveLineDown",
            "ctrl-cmd-up": "editor::MoveLineUp"
        }
    }
]

(there are probably more, but those were the three that i ran into right away)

[croustibat]

for Zed 0.139.3 you need to specify DuplicateLineDown or DuplicateLineUp.
Here is the one working for me :

[
  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-up": "editor::MoveLineUp",
      "cmd-down": "editor::MoveLineDown",
      "cmd-shift-d": "editor::DuplicateLineDown"
    }
  }
]