You can be sure that the Kakoune authors are familiar with vi(m). Having said that, if you like both vi(m) and the structural regular expression support of sam

You can be sure that the Kakoune authors are familiar with vi(m). Having said that, if you like both vi(m) and the structural regular expression support of sam/acme you might be interested in vis which combines the two: https://github.com/martanne/vis https://github.com/martanne/vis