ExpandRegion on Sublime Text
Note:
This post was written in 2014 and discusses technology that may be outdated.
The concepts may still be relevant, but specific tools/versions have changed.
Once you get used to the JetBrains suite of IDEs pressing Cmd/Ctrl+W for expanding selection becomes second nature. This leads to closing tabs on most applications such as text editors which is of little consequence since you can train yourself to use a different short cut.
My favourite text editor (Sublime Text) does not have this feature built in but it seems I’m not the only one who misses the expand region feature. Go grab your copy of ExpandRegion by Aron Woost from GitHub with full instructions on how to install on Windows, Linux and Mac.