Tabstops

Tabstops are the positions in a snippet where the cursor is stopped after hitting tab, prompting user input. There are indicated with $<n>, where n is the nth tabstop in the snippet.

Placeholder text can be used in conjunction with tabstops to insert default text. Placeholder text is inserted with ${<n>:<default>}, where n is the nth tabstop and default is the default text to be inserted in that location.

Visual snippets

Ultisnips supports entering snippets around visually selected text. To use these snippets, you first highlight the desired text in visual mode (v), then hit <tab> to begin entering the snippet (this will remove the highlighted text briefly), type the snippet name, and hit <tab> once more. This will enter the snippet, wrapping the visually selected text by whatever logic was defined in the snippet body.