How to make edits on multiple lines in Vim

While my preferred (current) editor is Nova, occasionally I have reason to edit in Vim, particularly when I’m working on files on a remote server. Recently, I found myself wanting to comment multiple lines in a Python file. On my personal machines, I’ve installed [NerdCommenter][nerdcomment], but that isn’t always available.¹

For those occasions, basic Vim line editing skills come in to play. First, you can toggle “Visual Line mode” by hitting Shift + V, then highlighting the relevant lines. From there, doing a simple replacement (:'<'>s/^/#/,² or whatever your comment replacement should be) comments out the selected lines.

Alternately, you can do a block selection (enter that mode with Ctrl+V), select the start of each line, then press Shift+I. Type out the pattern (it will only show up on a single line for the moment), press Esc, then press Enter and the changes will be applied to the whole block selection.

These methods are outlined in a post on ostechnix.com in methods 1 and 4.