# Move anchor and cursor together **URL:** \ **Category:** Recipes & Guides\ **Created:** [January 25, 2024, 4:07pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386 "2024-01-25T16:07:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/maxxus/32/889_2.png) [@Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/Maxxus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 4:07pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/1 "2024-01-25T16:07:19Z")
Is there a map I can do that will move the anchor with the cursor so the selection stays the same size? The problem I’m trying to solve in case there are alternate solutions. I do a bit of diagramming and sometimes I need to move a bit of the diagram around to a new line and position. Example: ``` A.Offset | B.Offset | | A.Length | | | B.Length V V V V |------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------| 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 ``` Now say I want to copy this diagram and update it so that B moves to the right 10 units. First I use C to select both **B**.Length and it’s **V** arrow and move them over 10 units by adding spaces. ``` A.Offset | B.Offset | | A.Length | | | ..............B.Length V V V ..............V |------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------| 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 ``` Now I want to move B.Offset to the right of and below A.Length. What I’d like to do is select **B.Offset** and d yank and delete it, then move the whole selection (anchor and cursor) down two lines and to the right 14 columns so that it overlays the new spaces I just inserted. Then I can R replace the spaces with the yank. ``` A.Offset | | | A.Length | | | B.Offset......B.Length V V V ..............V |------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------|------| 0 5 10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 ``` Not moving the anchor means that I have to mentally keep track of how big the selection was and manually select that many spaces for R replacement. Or p paste the yank and then d delete the spaces until B.Length is re-aligned with the V arrow again. ---
**Author:** ![robertmeta](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/robertmeta/32/833_2.png) [@robertmeta](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/robertmeta)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 4:43pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/2 "2024-01-25T16:43:05Z")
Worst kind of reply incoming, fair warning. Maybe a different tool would serve you better, like for ascii diagrams, [ASCIIFlow](https://asciiflow.com/#/) or, my personal favorite tool for doing diagrams in text is: [https://d2lang.com/](https://d2lang.com/) … and now that I think about it, d2 have an ascii diagram output format would be cool. … additially, sorry for no real help on your question 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/maxxus/32/889_2.png) [@Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/Maxxus)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 4:55pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/3 "2024-01-25T16:55:26Z")
It’s not the worst kind of reply, it’s actually a very valid point. I have used ASCIIFlow before, but I would like something that isn’t a webpage and also outputs ascii/unicode. I do most of my work in a terminal, so I’d like to stay there as much a possible. I’m actually writing a little terminal program to do art primitives, but it not ready for prime time yet. ---
**Author:** ![robertmeta](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/robertmeta/32/833_2.png) [@robertmeta](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/robertmeta)\ **Post date:** [January 25, 2024, 8:31pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/4 "2024-01-25T20:31:28Z")
D2 rocks and has a built in auto-formatter and is just done in text! I am a bit of a D2 fanboy. ---
**Author:** ![cipharius](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/cipharius/32/184_2.png) [@cipharius](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/cipharius)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2024, 10:01pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/5 "2024-01-30T22:01:12Z")
Hacked this together for sake of a challenge/practice: ```kak define-command preview-replace %{ remove-hooks window preview-replace hook -group preview-replace window RawKey |R %{ remove-hooks window preview-replace } hook -group preview-replace window ModeChange '.*' %{ remove-hooks window preview-replace } hook -group preview-replace window RawKey .* %{ execute-keys ";%sh{echo ${#kak_reg_dquote}}" } } ``` Note that the selection will wrap over to the next line if the yanked text is too long. ---
**Author:** ![Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/maxxus/32/889_2.png) [@Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/Maxxus)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2024, 3:36pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/6 "2024-01-31T15:36:35Z")
Cheers, I’ll give it a try. ---
**Author:** ![42xel](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/42xel/32/1274_2.png) [@42xel](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/42xel)\ **Post date:** [March 15, 2024, 1:19pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/7 "2024-03-15T13:19:59Z")
I’ve solved this exact problem for [̶a̶u̶t̶o̶-pairs release](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/a-u-t-o-pairs-release/2437) : ```auto HH ``` and same with L. I’m not sure it works as well with j and k but I didn’t need it. For your use case though, what I’d do is probably use a combination of - the `&` key which allows to align selections by adding spaces - `C` or `` to Copy selection from one line to another, keeping alignement and size Step by step : `/25Z` To quickly go to the pipe you want to align to and mark the selection `kk` To select the beginning of V and B.length `a&` To append back the 25 pipe to the selection and align the selections, inserting spaces `uUr.` Undo redo to select what’s just been added and replace it with points `/B\.OEd` To select B.Offset and yankdelete it `(\.)\.` Or anything that gets you back to the beginning of …B.Length Then you have a lot of options : - simply insert B.Offset, delete the dot and realign B.length with V using the `&` and `uUr` tricks. It is the most particular and hardest to turn into a mapping solution, but it may be fast enough that we don’t even need a mapping, especially if we think of aligning B.Length, V and 25 last rather than first. - Use an intermediate line to put work with what you copy, `&` and `C` - Shell out to get the length of the yank register (`${#varl}` or something, idk), and craft a selection accordingly, that you can then `R` replace. - plenty of other ways probably Because I like solution 2 the most, here is my jab at it (remember, the cursor is at the beginning of what we want to replace) : `\` to insert a new line without hook, so as to not trigger automatic indentation `ZjPa` to save the selection, go to the empty line and paste what we want to insert, selecting it and append back our previous selection `&` To align. We have to ensure the cursor is at the beginning of each selection, as `&` aligns cursors. `,` To keep only what we just pasted as selection `` to select the corresponding chunk on the line to make the insertion on (with undesired consequences if there is no room ! There is probably a more robust and much more lengthy solution than `` using `u`) `` to exchange the selections. `,x` To clear the temporary line. `(,` to select what you just inserted. ---
**Author:** ![Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/maxxus/32/889_2.png) [@Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/Maxxus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2024, 4:20pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/8 "2024-04-03T16:20:30Z")
I had a passing thought that it could be solved by mapping with the \, I just hadn’t taken the time to dig into it. The `HH` works really well. It seems the hard part is finding a good mapping for it. `H K L` all have an available `` mapping available ( I don’t use the history navigation ). But `` is eaten by legacy VT codes and `` is too useful to remap. ---
**Author:** ![42xel](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/42xel/32/1274_2.png) [@42xel](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/42xel)\ **Post date:** [April 5, 2024, 6:13pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/9 "2024-04-05T18:13:09Z")
When mappings come short, it may be time to make a user mode. You can use -lock option of the enter-user-mode command to stay in a mode. The on-key command may or may not come in handy if you want to factorize all the possible key mappings from this mode. ---
**Author:** ![gbcgy](https://discuss.kakoune.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/g/bbce88/32.png) [@gbcgy](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/gbcgy)\ **Post date:** [May 28, 2024, 10:15pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/10 "2024-05-28T22:15:22Z")
Another way to do this is using `selections_desc`. It contains each cursor/anchor position in the format `1.2,3.4`. So you can write a script that computes the length of each selection in a register, then add it to the current selections desc. For example: 1. Press `Z` to save selections\_desc to register `caret` 2. Go somewhere else 3. Find the lengths of each selection (`1.2,3.4` =\> `|2-4| = 2`) and add it to the current `selections_desc` with `:select` Sample code: ```python import os lengths = list(map(lambda x: abs(int(x.split(",")[0].split(".")[1]) - int(x.split(",")[1].split(".")[1])), os.getenv('reg_caret').split(" ")[1:])) def new_selection(sel_desc, new_width): sel_desc = list(map(lambda x: list(map(int, x.split("."))), sel_desc.split(","))) new_cursor_column = min(sel_desc[0][1], sel_desc[1][1]) + new_width return f"{sel_desc[0][0]}.{sel_desc[0][1]},{sel_desc[1][0]}.{new_cursor_column}" new_ones = list(map(lambda x: new_selection(*x), zip(os.getenv('selection_descs').split(' '), lengths))) print(':select ' + ' '.join(new_ones)) ``` ---
**Author:** ![Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/user_avatar/discuss.kakoune.com/maxxus/32/889_2.png) [@Maxxus](https://discuss.kakoune.com/u/Maxxus)\ **Post date:** [February 25, 2026, 8:21pm UTC](https://discuss.kakoune.com/t/move-anchor-and-cursor-together/2386/11 "2026-02-25T20:21:01Z")
Found another really simple way to do this. 1. select text you want to move 2. `s`-elect using the dot `.` wildcard so all characters are now anchors 3. `y`-ank the array of characters 4. optionally `r`-eplace the selections with a space ’ ’ 5. move keys now move all anchors together 6. `R`-eplace the selections at the new location