[mini.comment] Keep visual selection after toggling comment

[louwers]

I would like to keep the visual selection after commenting (out) a block of code.

Also I would not like to change lines.

Is this possible?

[echasnovski]

I am afraid I understand only part of the question.

I would like to keep the visual selection after commenting (out) a block of code.

So you'd like to have it in Visual mode like this:

• If text is made comment, then preserve visual selection.
• If text is made not comment, then not preserve visual selection.

Having this behavior is possible, but will not be officially supported. Here is a snippet:

local is_vis_mode = false
local maybe_restore_vis_mode = function(context)
  if is_vis_mode and context.action == 'comment' then vim.schedule(function() vim.cmd('normal! gv') end) end
  is_vis_mode = false
end
local vis_operator_rhs = function()
  is_vis_mode = true
  return MiniComment.operator()
end

require('mini.comment').setup({ hooks = { post = maybe_restore_vis_mode } })
vim.keymap.set('x', 'gc', vis_operator_rhs, { desc = 'Comment selection', expr = true })

This basically overcomes the issue of determining whether the action meets the criteria for preserving visual selection (via normal! gv) by using custom mapping in Visual mode (via explicit MiniComment.operator() call which I'd personally not recommend).

---

Also I would not like to change lines.

I don't really understand this. Could you elaborate?

[louwers]

Basically, I want the same behavior as other editors such as VS Code.

[louwers]

Screen.Recording.2024-10-28.at.19.06.54.mov

[echasnovski]

Basically, I want the same behavior as other editors such as VS Code.

This is Neovim which itself has a long history (including Vim) of how it handles commenting and 'mini.comment' represents exactly that.

As far as I can tell with the brief VS Code tests, 'mini.comment' behaves more like <C-/> (i.e. per-line toggle comment which stops selection) and not like <C-S-a> (i.e. toggle block comment which preserves selection).

The closest to VS Code behavior of <C-S-a> can be achieved with the solution above, but probably also and context.action == 'comment' condition needs to be removed (to preserve selection regardless of the action performed). This will work only on per line basis as 'mini.comment' doesn't support block comments.

My sincere suggestion would be to get used to the mini.comment' behavior as most Neovim (and Vim) operators don't preserve visual selection after operating on it.

[louwers]

Thanks for your detailed answers!