vim: quick column insert

Question

I have been using Vim for my text editor in place the notepad++. I want to know is there a way to perform "quick column insert" in vim.

As I know, we are able to perform column insert in vim in following steps:

1. move to the position
2. enter column visual mode CTRL+v
3. select the column j or k
4. enter into column insert mode shift+i
5. insert the text
6. type Esc

then the column insertion is performed

is there a way to delete the step 4 and perform column insertion directly?

Answer 1

I use the following mappings that allow to prepend / append spaces (also multiple with a [count] before the mapping):

:vnoremap <C-Space> I<Space><Esc>gv
:vnoremap <C-S-Space> A<Space><Esc>gv

Custom mappings such as these are the key to efficient editing, and very powerful in Vim. You'll find all the details in the :help.