Vim Macros are awesome. But it's hard to get it right on the first try.

-- dohsimpson 2015

I couldn't agree more, so I tried his plugin vim-macroeditor, and it was almost perfect.

It's a tiny plugin, 27 lines of VimScript, so it's easy to edit. I've rewritten it in Lua and modified the following:

• Now you can edit any register, not just macros
  • Though the best use is for editing macros, editing other types of registers is basically the same thing, so just allow it
• The command is :R[egisterEdit]
  • Best to use with just :R
• Checks that argument is a valid register
• No warnings when editing a register that wasn't already set
• Allows more than one window open at the same time
• Window shows register name in statusline
• Window height is set based on number of lines in register
• Always splits window below

Big thanks to dohsimpson for sharing the original plugin.

Start editing a register with :R <register>

Update <register> contents with :wq

Or discard changes with :q!

When you need to insert special characters like <Esc> (displayed as ^[) in a macro, press Ctrl + v in insert mode followed by Esc

Newlines in registers are stored as ^J (see :h NL-used-for-Nul). This causes an actual Ctrl + j keypress in a macro.

That's why macros should be written only on the first line of the registereditor buffer with no empty lines after.

When a newline at the end of the register is desired, the registereditor buffer should end in an empty line.

This plugin is in essence a less cumbersome alternative to one of the following methods:

Example register q

1. On the command line:

   • :let @q = "<C-r>q"
   • Register q contents are pasted on commandline for editing

2. Temporarily pasting to a buffer for editing:

   • "qp
   • Edit inside buffer
   • Yank it back using something like:
     • "qy . . .
     • "qd . . .