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Tip 1495 Previous Tip • Next Tip

Created: January 29, 2007 Complexity: intermediate Author: Max Cantor Minimum version: 5.7 Karma: 12/6 Imported from: Tip#1495

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There are a bunch of HTML wrapper tips and tricks out there, but I couldn't find any that suited my desire to be able to quickly wrap an arbitrary visual highlight in an arbitrary HTML tag.

I haven't tested the function below thoroughly, but it works in every visual mode, even if you're doing per-character visual mode and end your selection on a different line. I like to make all of my HTML tags uppercase, but if you don't bother, you can change the line:

let a:tag = toupper( input( "Tag to wrap block: ") )

to

let a:tag = input( "Tag to wrap block: ")

There may be a quicker way to input the arbitrary tag than with an input() call, but I kind of like this one.

Here's the function, and a mapping to go with it:

" Wraps visual selection in an HTML tag
vmap ,w <ESC>:call VisualHTMLTagWrap()<CR>
function! VisualHTMLTagWrap()
  let a:tag = toupper( input( "Tag to wrap block: ") )
  let a:jumpright = 2 + len( a:tag )
  normal `<
  let a:init_line = line( "." )
  exe "normal i<".a:tag.">"
  normal `>
  let a:end_line = line( "." )
  " Don't jump if we're on a new line
  if( a:init_line == a:end_line )
    " Jump right to compensate for the characters we've added
    exe "normal ".a:jumpright."l"
  endif
  exe "normal a</".a:tag.">"
endfunction

[edit] Comments

Why don't you do it the opposite way:

normal `>
exe "normal a</".a:tag.">"
normal `<
exe "normal i<".a:tag.">"

Here, you don't have to care about shifting your selected area.

[edit] Tags case

Since XHTML defines all tags and attributes to be in lowercase, I'd suggest to follow this convention in HTML as well.

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