Sublime Text 3 macro to delete x lines from caret - macros

Question

I'm wanting to create a Sublime Text 3 macro to select 111 lines from the cursor and delete them. I tried recording this, but all it did was delete one character backwards, which I'm still confused by. I then looked into writing the macro manually, and the relevant commands here, but I've still not been able to figure out from that page whether what I want is possible, and if it is, how. Would really appreciate some help with this.

Answer 1

There is no internal Sublime Text command that will do multiple moves at once, unfortunately. However it is possible to define your own movement command via plugin code, which allows you to work around that.
To go this route, select Tools > Developer > New Plugin... from the menu and replace the default code with the following, then save the file as a python file (e.g. move_repeat.py). By using the menu entry to do this, Sublime will ensure that your plugin is stored in your User package.
import sublime
import sublime_plugin
class MoveRepeatCommand(sublime_plugin.TextCommand):
def run(self, edit, repeat=1, **kwargs):
for num in range(repeat):
self.view.run_command("move", kwargs)
This implements a new command named move_repeat which is a drop in replacement for the move command, providing an extra argument of repeat that specifies how many times to perform the movement that you provide.
As a drop in replacement, this can be used for any cursor movement (lines, words, etc).
Using this, your macro becomes the following:
[
{
"command": "move_repeat",
"args":
{
"by": "lines",
"extend": true,
"forward": true,
"repeat": 111
}
},
{
"command": "left_delete"
}
]
Here I just created the macro by hand-coding it. If you wanted to do this with an actual macro recording you would need to go about that another way.
For example, you could record the macro going down only one line and deleting, then manually add the extra value after the fact, or you could bind a key binding to the repeated command first and then do a macro recording.

Answer 2

The Messy Way
I've since managed to figure out a way to record macros. For some reason, the recorder doesn't register text selection by mouse, so I had to select the text via keyboard shortcut while recording the macro. This does the job in that it creates the macro I describe, although it also results in a script that I'm guessing is far less elegant than it would be if written by someone in the know.
Here's a shortened version of the script I ended up with:
[
{
"args":
{
"by": "lines",
"extend": true,
"forward": true
},
"command": "move"
},
{
"args":
{
"by": "lines",
"extend": true,
"forward": true
},
"command": "move"
},
{
"args":
{
"by": "lines",
"extend": true,
"forward": true
},
"command": "move"
},
{
"args":
{
"by": "lines",
"extend": true,
"forward": true
},
"command": "move"
},
{
"args":
{
"by": "lines",
"extend": true,
"forward": true
},
"command": "move"
},
{
"args": null,
"command": "left_delete"
}
]
It's as crude as it gets. It works by using the move command to select one line at a time. This means that this command block needs to be repeated for each line that you want to select for deletion. In my case, I needed 111 of them. Hopefully someone will come along and offer a nicer solution, but until then, this does the job.