Disable Multiple Cursors

[lucaspenney]

I don't use the 'multiple cursors' feature, and there doesn't appear to be any way to turn it off.

You can change the key binding between ctrl and alt, but there's no way to prevent multiple cursors from being created altogether. If you use these modifiers for other things, it's easy to accidentally create multiple cursors in random places and end up with text in areas you don't expect.

Being able to set this key binding to 'none' would probably be sufficient.

[sandy081]

You can remove keybindings for these commands from keybindings editor.

[lucaspenney]

You can't set the modifier to any value other than alt or control. There's also no way to override the behavior of mouse clicks via the keybindings editor.

[sandy081]

Did you try removing the keybindings for the following commands from keybindings editor?

[sandy081]

@lucaspenney Sorry I see what you mean.. its while using the mouse. Reopening and forwarding it to right person.

[gilesbradshaw]

Did this get sorted?

It's really annoying you do l;t seem to be able to disable Alt+click - I keep trashing my code without realising I am :(

[drdozer]

I'm in ubuntu. My workspaces keep getting mangled by it going into multi-cursor mode, often when switching focus and then using the mouse scroll wheel. I want to be able to turn this off!

[ghost]

When entering "for", multiple cursors appear automatically, I need to disable multi-cursor completely!

[gilesbradshaw]

Please consider implementing this feature ASAP it is very annoying!

All I have to do is press my mouse wheel slightly too hard and scroll up and down and it completely trashes my code.

This is a serious usability issue for me. I appreciate maybe I am using the mouse 'wrong' but I can't necessarily help that. It may be if you have a different type of mouse/track pad etc or a subtle, delicate highly skilled mouse finger you don't appreciate how irritating this is.

It would seem a very simple issue to fix..

[David-Spooner]

Out of nowhere VsCode just started putting me in multi-cursor mode every time I click on an element. I've been using VSCode for about a month or so. Have been coding all day today. I know it wasn't like this just an hour ago. Is this some kind of bug?

[demeshkin]

@David-Spooner It's a new feature and you can disable it with html.mirrorCursorOnMatchingTag: false. https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_41#_html-mirror-cursor

[David-Spooner]

@demeshkin Thank you!

[ghost]

@demeshkin Thanks lad!

[mario0511]

@demeshkin Thanks! Was getting crazy with this

[ca0v]

I love the idea of the closing tags auto-correcting but doing it with multi-cursor isn't working. If I just want to add a class name to an existing tag it also adds it to the closing tag. Auto-correcting XML/HTML tags can be done using rename (F2).

[triwats]

Should mirroring not be default for HTML files? On as a default seems to be very opinionated at to me, and as someone that doesn't write that much HTML, this has been a real pain point.

[vanadu]

IMO it's a very bad idea to implement a new feature as default on update, particularly this one. Not happy about wasting time figuring out how to turn if off.

[larryosborn]

I just figured out this was why the vim extension was constantly showing errors when I tried highlighting and manipulating lines.

[geoff-va]

I was having the same problem with the vim plugin - when I start hjkl-ing over vertically stacked tags, it just keeps adding more cursor selections and goes crazy. Very glad this can be disabled for now. Looks like a great feature if it gets vim compatibility!

[huahuayu]

@David-Spooner It's a new feature and you can disable it with html.mirrorCursorOnMatchingTag: false. https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_41#_html-mirror-cursor

It works for me! I vote for disabling it by default. at least it's not smart enough when using vim mode to edit html file. I keep press Esc to get rid of it.

[abhayswee2]

@David-Spooner It's a new feature and you can disable it with html.mirrorCursorOnMatchingTag: false. https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_41#_html-mirror-cursor

I am a great supporter of vs code and using it as my primary ide from last 2 years. But this is the first time i got completely fed up with this feature(it is more of a bug to me than a feature) of mirror cursor.

One request, Don't heap opinionated stuff on us. Plugins are there for such fancy stuff.

[aesyondu]

I understand that this is a free and open source software; I didn't pay anything to use this amazing text editor, and for that I am extremely grateful. But for as long as I have used vscode, this is the only "feature" that I hope seals itself in a barrel and falls off of a waterfall.

[S0und]

html.mirrorCursorOnMatchingTag

I find it quite insane that this feature is ON by default. It's like suddenly you have a helping hand that's in your way, doesn't helpful at all, and just annoys you. If you happens to use any VIM emulation this ruins your workflow immediately.

[valentjn]

To all those who complained about html.mirrorCursorOnMatchingTag being enabled by default: In the new 1.42 release (available since yesterday), it's disabled by default, see https://code.visualstudio.com/updates/v1_42#_html-mirror-cursor-off-by-default.

However, this change doesn't affect this issue, which is about being able to turn off multiple cursors completely.

[opsaaaaa]

removing all the keybindings with add cursor in the title worked for me.

[fjwilson]

Can this be fixed already. I am about to go back to Notepad ++ this feature is a pain. Why can't you just turn it off? Who created this feature and decided everyone needed it?

[espoire]

I'm trying to get both Alt+Drag for rectangle selection AND Ctrl+Click for "Go to Definition" both working at the same time, but I can't because of the Multi-Cursors setting.

"Selection > Switch to Alt+Click for Multi-Cursor" breaks my rectangle selection, and "Selection > Switch to Ctrl+Click for Multi-Cursor" breaks my Go to Definition. I want to just turn it off, but there's no way to turn it off.

Chiming in that I want a way to disable the Multi-Cursors feature entirely, and/or bind it to something completely different.

[JoelBonetR]

Today VSCode decided to toggle multi cursor automagically by its own.

It reversed the Alt + select action (which adds multilines and it's fine when I wish to use that) and now it makes multi select by default and Alt + select does the normal behaviour. I've tried closing and re-opening the IDE but this annoying thing still remains.

I've no key binding set for that by the way. How does it come possible?

Toggle Multi-Cursor Modifier (workbench.action.toggleMultiCursorModifier) is not binded to any key combination (I assumed that this is the given feature) and even if I try to bind a key combination to that and use the combination, this annoying behaviour still remains.

Thoughts? Help?

[JoelBonetR]

I'm trying to get both Alt+Drag for rectangle selection AND Ctrl+Click for "Go to Definition" both working at the same time, but I can't because of the Multi-Cursors setting.

"Selection > Switch to Alt+Click for Multi-Cursor" breaks my rectangle selection, and "Selection > Switch to Ctrl+Click for Multi-Cursor" breaks my Go to Definition. I want to just turn it off, but there's no way to turn it off.

Chiming in that I want a way to disable the Multi-Cursors feature entirely, and/or bind it to something completely different.

You can use IntelliJ IDEA Keybindings plugin that has the combination you need 👍

[kevgo]

The multi-cursor feature is very useful for some people, thanks for implementing it. There are alternative ways to apply edits to multiple locations of code, for example using the "repeat" command when in the Vim extension (by pressing the "." key). I therefore suggest to provide a clean way to disable the multiple-cursor functionality in VSCode. This will add greatly to VSCode's character as a modular and hackable editor framework that allows pushing the boundaries of usability and efficiency.

[supproduction]

Today VSCode decided to toggle multi cursor automagically by its own.

It reversed the Alt + select action (which adds multilines and it's fine when I wish to use that) and now it makes multi select by default and Alt + select does the normal behaviour. I've tried closing and re-opening the IDE but this annoying thing still remains.

I've no key binding set for that by the way. How does it come possible?

Toggle Multi-Cursor Modifier (workbench.action.toggleMultiCursorModifier) is not binded to any key combination (I assumed that this is the given feature) and even if I try to bind a key combination to that and use the combination, this annoying behaviour still remains.

Thoughts? Help?

Same for, how I can disable it?

[sduduzog]

@JoelBonetR @supproduction I found a solution for this. On the title bar menus, go to Selection and disable 'Column Selection Mode' and you'll be good.

[alicederyn]

This definitely needs to be more than a bimodal choice of "alt" or "control". Please please add "disable" at a minimum.

[FrostyDuck76]

The multi-cursor in VSCode has actually been bothering me, and the bad part about this feature is that it cannot be disabled. It's hard to tell if there's a multi-cursor around, especially if the other cursor is off-screen from the editor.

Maybe you could add a setting in the JSON file called editor.multiCursorEnabled with the options as False to disable, and True to enable.

VSCode is a great text editor, but this annoying feature gets in my way when I'm trying to code.

[FriendsFerdinand]

Could you please disable this feature by default? I can only set it so that it's triggered when I alt+click or cmd+click. I want none. I don't want it to activate, ever.

[jxbell]

I love VS Code in so many ways, but this has been a frustrating feature for me that makes me sad. The multi-cursor in VSCode cannot be disabled. It's super error prone! You can switch between cmd and opt keys but I still accidentally click with them and cause genuine errors in the documents. Please add a setting in the JSON file called editor.multiCursorEnabled with the options as False to disable, and True to enable.

[truher]

it has been over five years.

any committers listening?

[StarKnightt]

Switch to the Ctrl + click for multi cursor and disable the column selection mode, and it worked for me