[vim] Find and replace strings in vim on multiple lines

Specifying the range through visual selection is ok but when there are very simple operations over just a couple of lines that can be selected by an operator the best would be to apply these commands as operators.

This sadly can't be done through standards vim commands. You could do a sort of workaround using the ! (filter) operator and any text object. For example, to apply the operation to a paragraph, you can do:

!ip

This has to be read as "Apply the operator ! inside a paragraph". The filter operator starts command mode and automatically insert the range of lines followed by a literal "!" that you can delete just after. If you apply this, to the following paragraph:

1
2  Repellendus qui velit vel ullam!
3  ipsam sint modi! velit ipsam sint
4  modi! Debitis dolorum distinctio
5  mollitia vel ullam! Repellendus qui
6  Debitis dolorum distinctio mollitia
7  vel ullam! ipsam
8
9  More text around here

The result after pressing "!ap" would be like:

:.,.+5

As the '.' (point) means the current line, the range between the current line and the 5 lines after will be used for the operation. Now you can add the substitute command the same way as previously.

The bad part is that this is not easier that selecting the text for latter applying the operator. The good part is that this can repeat the insertion of the range for other similar text ranges (in this case, paragraphs) with sightly different size. I.e., if you later want to select the range bigger paragraph the '.' will to it right.

Also, if you like the idea of using semantic text objects to select the range of operation, you can check my plugin EXtend.vim that can do the same but in an easier manner.