Script editor multi-cursor

As a Roblox developer, it is currently too hard to make large complex refactors, and too slow to do operations on multiple lines of code at once.

Other programming environments such as Sublime Text and JetBrains IDEs provide multi-cursor features for rapidly editing repetitive blocks of text or common pieces of text selected via the Find feature. When used properly this feature can speed up programming significantly, and make some tragic refactoring situations take seconds.

For example:

https://gfycat.com/EqualHeartyKestrel

https://gfycat.com/OddEnchantingFirecrest

Many editors that offer multi-cursor offer the ability to select all matched blocks of text from the Find feature. This is very useful for making precision edits to repetitively defined data structures, extensively used similar-but-different strings, or function calls. Using Find and Replace in many cases is simply not viable because the text being matched may need to be edited along with its surroundings, and not just simply replaced.

For example:

https://gfycat.com/FocusedCompleteHog

I make extensive use of multi-cursor in all of the text editors I use that have implemented it effectively. In fact, I tend to use it on a daily basis when it’s available. In text editors that don’t have multi-cursor, such as Roblox Studio’s script editor, sometimes I’m forced to copy code into Sublime Text so I can take advantage of its multi-cursor features and save myself 20 minutes.

Please use JetBrains IDEs (PHPStorm / CLion) and Sublime Text as examples of good multi-cursor implementations.

Necessary features include Find All to select all matched text instances, movement of all cursors via arrow keys, typing at the positions of all cursors, copy and paste for each individual cursor, and hotkeys for creating cursors on the lines above / below current cursors, and where clicked.

If Roblox is able to address this issue, my workflow would be much smoother because I would no longer need to use another text editor to make broad edits to my code.

73 Likes

This is still something that would be massively appreciated by the dev-community and would allow for a better experience whilst using the in-built editor. Yes, using plugins like Rojo is a workaround as it allows you to use an external editor to edit code, but it does require some setup for each project that I just don’t want/need to do when I’m making small test places.

Developing in Studio has become better and better over the past couple years with awesome debugging tools however the Editor itself is still kind of lacking. This along with support for searching with Regex would be such a step up from what we got right now

6 Likes