In Vim, is there a way to move an object/motion (word, character, visual selection, etc) horizontally in the line, shifting characters around it?

Question

For instance, I have the following line:

object     => "plaintext",

I want to move the word 'object' over to the right (so it's one space away from the '=>'), like this:

    object => "plaintext",

The only way I know of doing it would be (starting at the beginning of the line): i <esc>ea4x, or the equivalent from another starting location. I'd love to do the same thing I do for moving lines, but horizontally:

" Move lines up/down
nnoremap <Down> :m+<CR>==
nnoremap <Up> :m-2<CR>==
vnoremap <Down> :m '>+1<CR>gv=gv
vnoremap <Up> :m '<-2<CR>gv=gv

Answer 1

You could cut(delete) and paste(put) your whitespace. It's not glorious but it would work. However I feel like a better option would be to align your text by using tabular (Aligning text with Tabular.vim) or vim-easy-align.

Using tabular you can do the following:

:Tabularize/=>/r1l1l1

There is also exchange.vim, but that is just fancy delete and putting. Swapping two regions of text with exchange.vim

Answer 2

Another option to just do the horizontal movement is the following:

• Provided you have already selected the text you want to move:

  :vnoremap <A-S-l> xp`[v`]
  :vnoremap <A-S-h> xhhp`[v`]
  

• In normal mode, to just move the word your cursor is over (in any character of that word). These mappings will let you in visual mode:

  :nnoremap <A-S-l> viwxp`[v`]
  :nnoremap <A-S-h> viwxhhp`[v`]
  

• In insert mode, to just move the word your cursor is over (in any character of that word). These two mappings will let you in visual mode:

  :inoremap <A-S-l> <Esc>viwxp`[v`]
  :inoremap <A-S-h> <Esc>viwxhhp`[v`]
  

With these mappings, you can:

• Move selected text to the right: Alt+Shift+l
• Move selected text to the left: Alt+Shift+h

Basically, you just cut what you have selected, paste it appropriately and select again what you have just pasted.

Obviously you can select any mapping you like.