I use the visual-multi plugin [0] all day in vim/neovim.

I don't like using tons of plugins but multi cursor with with selective invocation like the ctrl-d of sublime etc was the main thing I missed when moving to vim. (I use visual block mode too but it's not the same thing).

https://github.com/mg979/vim-visual-multi.git

I'd say so, I find myself using it somewhat regularly.

It's pretty easy in vim once you learn how to use visual block mode. That or using Sed to replace text in a selection or the entire file.

http://paulrougieux.github.io/vim.html#Edit_multiple_lines

They are very useful! As a long time Vim user who switched to Kakoune[0] a while back, I didn't even realize I needed a good multiline cursor from my editor before it tried Kakoune. Highly recommend it!

[0] https://kakoune.org/

If you need to pass lots of arguments to a command it's super useful. Typically I don't do this because it's quite unwieldly with a standard readline editor, but I could if multiline editing was available!

I use it not infrequently for crafting big ol bash pipelines to put into scripts, specifically via emacs’ `shell` terminal emulator.

This works in everything that uses libreadline to accept user input (unless the binary has specifically configured library differently iiuc), so should work in all shell-like interfaces. You can customize the shortcuts in inputrc, likewise, for all libreadline-using binaries. By default, readline tries to be emacs-like. You can ask it to be vi-like, or reconfigure lots of its shortcuts to be similar to an editor you like. To be fair, "escape to real editor" is not a thing you usually do in an editor, so that will remain special.

Ctrl-z will put Vim to sleep. You can look at the history and then type `fg` to bring the Vim back to the foreground.

In emacs a shell is like a text buffer where you can simply search or move around as you would do in a text file. To get command history you'd just execute `history` and then ctrl+s (find) it, or move to it with the cursor.

So does Emacs. I kind of assume vim and neovim do too, these days.

Normally I would pull the command I need multi-line editing for back from shell history, using the search operator '!' and print predicate ':p' before invoking bash's 'edit-and-execute-command' on it. I suppose while in the editor then I might need history again, but I can't recall it being an issue.

I love how my previous comment is downvoted with no answer by I assume bash and zsh fanboys when these kinds of features are barely used by users, because they can't be easily found.

Use something like fish to see what real feature discoverability for a shell looks like.

And I say this as a zsh user that has waded through the mountains of obscure documentation to set it up. Don't fall into Stockholm syndrome and think that if you went through hardship, others should, too.

99% of bash/zsh discussion threads are someone going: "here is awesome feature I found" (where frequently that feature is something that should have been painfully obvious to notice) and then 100 replies: "that's so cool and useful, I never knew about it and I've been using bash/zsh for N > 5 years".