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Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

helix-editor.com

41–50 of 169 posts

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#42

I really like helix. So much that I've switched from jetbrains to neovim. I think hx is way more "discoverable" than vim with it's "whichkey" by default functionality and it's motion-first structure is way more attractive to me. As someone used to an IDE, I just really want git integration and other things. As soon as they land on a plugin system, maybe it will be viable.

> I really like helix. So much that I’ve switched from jetbrains to neovim.

This is a very confusing statement. Helix caused you to drop JetBrains IDEs for another editor (that is not Helix) entirely?

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#43
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remap capslock to CTRL when held and ESC when tapped. Good idea for vim too

The classic mapping is Alt/Meta to send escape when tapped, because terminals send Alt-q as `ESC q`. I have no strong opinions about how people lay out their keyboards, other than that people should try a split key if they haven't. My layout sends ESC when Alt is tapped, capslock is for backspace.

What about holding spacebar to overheat the computer and exit emacs?

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#44
Having to switch between "normal" and "insert" modes all the time is one of the things that turns me off from vi and its family tree, and is consequently something that turns me off of Helix, too. There are a lot of neat ideas here, though, and I wonder how many could be hacked into other editors like Emacs.

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The first thing I did on my vim setup was installing an extension which gave me very similar command completions. How did you do that? Were you also able to replicate the small popups that open when you press `m`, `g`, etc.?

Just an extension. It is https://github.com/liuchengxu/vim-which-key if you are interested. >Were you also able to replicate the small popups that open when you press `m`, `g`, etc.? Yes, although 'm' has a totally different meaning in vim (placing a mark), so there is no popup for that. But it works where there are actually sensible choices, even for marks it works and shows you every available one, which is pretty…

If you're using Neovim you want this one: https://github.com/folke/which-key.nvim

New nvim api lets mappings add a desc which will get picked up automatically with this plugin.

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#47
post #25
post #20

For anyone who's used to fd/jk/kj/jj/jf or the like in Vim as an alias to ESC to exit insert mode, it looks like Helix is not too usable as of today: https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2612 I would've considered exploring Helix myself if it wasn't for this.

Remap capslock to CTRL when held and ESC when tapped. Good idea for vim too

Using caps lock to escape is close to the ergonomics of an early terminal used by Bill Joy where the escape key sat to the left of Q.

https://twobithistory.org/2018/08/05/where-vim-came-from.htm...

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#48
post #5

I often wonder what a modern emacs would look like. This feel like a step in that direction.

A modern Emacs would look like VSCode with an API that was lower level, with less built-in UI, a focus on pure text buffers, and incubated for a few years to build out more of a framework so every extension doesn’t feel completely unrelated. It’s unlikely VSCode will become that, but it’s even more unlikely to be a text editor pitched to Vim users.

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#49
If Helix added some kind of compatibility layer for Vim/Neovim plugins (much like Neovim's support for VimScript or the existence of things like Torch.jl in Julia), I'd switch in a heartbeat. As it stands, I simply rely on too much of the Vim/Neovim ecosystem to make the jump.

Re: Helix: Post-Modern Text Editor

#50
I'm a long-time user of Emacs, and although I don't see myself switching to Helix, one thing that I really liked when I looked at Helix was how good the out-of-the-box experience was. As I get older, I am annoyed at the amount of customization that I have for different programs, and I wish I had fewer dotfiles that to maintain and carry around. I recently started trying some of my daily drivers (alacritty, fish, tmux, git) without my configurations and though they're a bit less comfortable, they're pretty good nonetheless. I would probably put Helix in that category: I would probably be fine just using the thing without any customization, because the defaults are so well chosen and polished.
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