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I doubt this comment was in good faith (you decided to ignore literally all the features I mentioned and focused on just creating files) but I am going to reply anyway:

1. There is no way that `touch newfile` is faster. Using voil, you press a keybind, enter `newfile`, save and you are done. Using touch you have to first, use some keybinding to switch to terminal, then type `touch ` (6 letter overhead) then type the name of the file and then switch back to vscode. I am not saying voil is meaningfully faster, but you saying that `touch newfile` is faster is wild to me.

2. If I am editing a comlpex file name I like having access to all the text editing features that I have in vscode as opposed to the barebones text editing features in the terminal.

3. There is also all the other moving/copying/renaming with visual feedback that you decided to completely ignore.

4. If touch was faster then oil.nvim would not have been such a popular extension. I am sure most vim users know how to use `touch`.

2 comments

If you need complex file manipulation, all of that can be achieved by writing a shell script. That's what I've been doing. You also automatically get access to flow control statements and tools like sed/awk/find.

> all the text editing features that I have in vscode as opposed to the barebones text editing features in the terminal.

VSCode is a very primitive text editor compared to vim, emacs or helix. You don't need to edit the command line right there in the shell prompt, nor do you need to create any files — press Ctrl+X + Ctrl+E and hack away. Save and close the file (ZZ in vim, for example), and it gets executed by the shell.

> then oil.nvim would not have been such a popular extension

Popularity is a bad metric, most people don't bother to learn the tools they're using.

> If you need complex file manipulation, all of that can be achieved by writing a shell script. That's what I've been doing. You also automatically get access to flow control statements and tools like sed/awk/find.

Well yes, of course they all "can" be done by writing a shell script, the same way any text editing with vim "can" also be done using ed.

> VSCode is a very primitive text editor compared to vim, emacs or helix. You don't need to edit the command line right there in the shell prompt, nor do you need to create any files — press Ctrl+X + Ctrl+E and hack away. Save and close the file (ZZ in vim, for example), and it gets executed by the shell.

I actually use vscode with the vim extension. You seem to be assuming I am unfamiliar with vim and emacs, I can assure you I know them well enough (at least vim, I also am familiar with the overall features of emacs, though I lack the muscle memory to use it efficiently).

Here is an example: Let's say you have a file named `feature_experimental.cpp` now you want to remove the `_experimental.cpp` from all the files in the current directory which have `_experimental`. I assure you that I can do it faster using voil than you can with vanilla vscode.

1. There is an inbuilt terminal in VS code. Its almost always active for me and even if it isnt focusing it/bringing it up is the same distance as firing up voil. The benefit here is that it doesnt occupy your editor 2. What complex file names do you need text editing features for? 3. fzf and zoxide covers most of it

I dont want to return the favor of speculate on intent of comment as yours would be petulant and stubborn without focusing on meaningful rebuttal. Im placing this in my comment as based on your other responses there does seem to be a pattern.