The safety net for complex selections
Most of the time, operator + text object is faster than Visual mode. But for ad-hoc selections — "this and the next four lines plus that bit at the end" — Visual mode lets you see exactly what you're about to operate on, then press the operator last.
Three flavors of Visual
v— character-wise. Anywhere from one char to multiple lines.V— line-wise. Whole lines only, regardless of where on each line you are.Ctrl-v— block (column). The killer feature for columnar editing.
Select first, then verb
Once you're in Visual mode, every motion expands or shrinks the selection. When the selection is what you want, press an operator: d deletes it, y yanks it, c changes it, > indents it, = auto-formats it, : drops you into a Command-line scoped to the selection ('<,'>).
Block selection — columnar editing
This is the move that other editors can barely match. Press Ctrl-v, move down to define a column, press I to insert at the start of the block, type your text, press Esc — and Vim applies your edit to every line in the block. Same for A (append after column), c (change column), d (delete column).
Ctrl-v + I session, your text appears only on the first line until you press Esc. Then Vim duplicates it to every selected line. It's normal; don't panic and abort.Reselect the last selection
gv brings back the last visual selection — invaluable when you operate on a region, realize you wanted the next operator, and want to redo the selection without re-defining it.
The other-end pivot
Inside Visual mode, o jumps to the other end of the selection — useful for extending the selection backward when you started forward, or vice versa.