goblank

Move cursor to previous/next blank line.

This extension will install two keyboard shortcuts:

• alt+{ moves the cursor to the previous blank line
• alt+} moves the cursor to the next blank line

This is a useful way for navigating files. For example, blank lines are often what separates functions. So using these keystrokes, you can quickly hop between functions in your source file.

Background

I originally wrote this Emacs code to do it:

(defconst jart-blank-line-regexp
  "^$"  ;; "^\f*$"
  "Blank line regular expression.")

(defun jart-prev-blank-line ()
  "Set point to previous blank line."
  (interactive)
  (while (and (looking-at jart-blank-line-regexp)
              (> (point) (point-min)))
    (forward-line -1))
  (or (search-backward-regexp jart-blank-line-regexp nil t)
      (goto-char 0)))

(defun jart-next-blank-line ()
  "Set point to next blank line."
  (interactive)
  (while (and (looking-at jart-blank-line-regexp)
              (< (point) (point-max)))
    (forward-line))
  (or (search-forward-regexp jart-blank-line-regexp nil t)
      (goto-char (point-max))))

(global-set-key (kbd "M-{") 'jart-prev-blank-line)
(global-set-key (kbd "M-}") 'jart-next-blank-line)

I wanted to have this for VSCode too, so I wrote this.