What can I do with visual mode?

We’ve now learned how to use the different variants of visual mode to select a region of text. But what can we actually do with it? So far we’ve only deleted regions of text — but there’s more we can do.

You can use the following key maps in visual mode:

• x or d to delete
• c to change — i.e. deleting your entire selection, then dropping you into insert mode
• y to “yank” — this is similar to copying to the clipboard, and we’ll learn more about this in the next lesson
• > to indent forward
• < to indent backwards

Give it a try in the editor. Don’t feel like you need to try yanking for now, though; we’re going to learn about that soon.