5 ms·

What do people here think of Helix? https://helix-editor.com https://helix-editor.com

newaccount2023 4y ago
I want to like helix and have tried to daily-drive it it just seems missing so much still a quick example - in emacs, I can do "comment-region" and I will get to comment out a selection with the right comment sequence - afaik even something as simple as that doesn't work in helix so many other things minor modes are important...in emacs I can have spell checking as a "minor mode" when editing markdown...how do I do this in helix? easy support for lsp is fine but that means helix is useless if you don't have lsp for a file format you are working on...like .txt! emacs is still a great TEXT editor maybe one day helix will be an option, not today
johnchristopher 4y ago
It looks nice and fresh but I don't understand how to quickly add support for a language. hx --health show red crosses everywhere, LSP column has red crosses with elm-lang, elvish, etc. or None. Documentation about adding languages seems more about adding new languages. What should I do to get niceties ? edit: ah, thanks search engine then arch wiki then https://docs.helix-editor.com/languages.html https://docs.helix-editor.com/languages.html then https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/How-to-install-the-default-language-servers https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/How-to-install-th...
doix 4y ago
It gets brought up a lot in vim discussions. It's missing a few major things for me; 1. Tabs (like in vim). I've found only vim and emacs have tabs in a way that makes sense to me. Kakoune also has a cool model, where I can use my window manager (or tmux) to recreate tabs. 2. Code folding, I like to fold everything as soon as I open a file to get an "overview" and then slowly unfold as look into the details. Wasn't in Helix last time I checked. 3. Narrowing. Emacs has it built in [0], (neo)vim requires a plugin [1]. Similar to code folding, when I'm working on a large function, I want to pretend it's the entirety of my buffer. Other than that, I'm not convinced that changing the order of key combinations makes sense. Kakoune did the same, I'm not a fan. I spent too long "thinking" in vim mode. I think it's great at bringing the "floor" up, it's much easier to get productive in helix. But the ceiling is lower than vim. [0] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Narrowing.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Na... [1] https://github.com/hoschi/yode-nvim https://github.com/hoschi/yode-nvim
- patrickkidger 4y ago
  FWIW, Helix does have tabs. (Set `editor.bufferline = True` in `config.toml` in order to have them listed.)
  - doix 4y ago
    These are not tabs the way vim does tabs. It just shows you which buffers you have opened. Vim tabs allow you to quickly switch between collections of windows. Here's a better explanation written by someone else[0] [0] https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2295#issuecomment-1273743694 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2295#issuecomme...
- llimllib 4y ago
  It’s also missing a “format region” key code equivalent to `gq`, which is what ended my attempt to use it
  - patrickkidger 4y ago
    There is the option to `auto-format` on save, if that helps. (FWIW I use neither, and format via pre-commit hooks instead of in-editor.)
    - llimllib 4y ago
      it doesn't - I use `gq` frequently to format things without the LSP, a concept that helix lacks completely. An example is: I write a long comment string on one line, then `Vgq` breaks it into a comment block according to the line width I have set for the file.
  - dmix 4y ago
    Oh I couldn't live without that.
anon23432343 4y ago
I can't use it because it does not support multi LSP for one file. For example if you have typescript and eslint. Helix right now can't run both. So you would need to run eslint in the terminal.
enriquto 4y ago
Just my graybeard opinions: - Love the possibility to download a single-file static executable that works out of the box, without need for a bizarre install method - Love that basic vim keybindings work - Hate that it does not come with a manpage hx.1 - Mildly annoyed by the default look and feel (line numbers taking horizontal space so that my code does not fit on the 80 column terminal, ugly white bar at the bottom, ugly negative-contrast completion hints, lines longer than 70 columns silently disappear to the right of the screen forcing me to do very unergonomical horizontal scroll, tabs should be 8 spaces by default not 2) - There's really nothing wrong with this program, but it just feels like a vim clone, and I don't see the point to move from vim in my case.
- ctvo 4y ago
  > - There's really nothing wrong with this program, but it just feels like a vim clone, and I don't see the point to move from vim in my case. It's a vim clone that works out of the box with LSP support, telescope, etc. that would require hours of plugin tinkering toil. I don't need to manage, configure, update, and depend on plugin authors. It's great. I install it on every host I need to interact with. Quality of life things like `helix --health` further reduces toil.
  - enriquto 4y ago
    Thanks for the explanation. I guess that these features are important for their users, but I'm definitely not one of them. (In fact, lsp is so ugly that it's a positive feature not to support it, but I digress...)
marliechiller 4y ago
Always wanted to try it but the biggest barrier to me is that if I were to pick this up, it would not be available on all machines where as vi is.
freefrog334433 4y ago
I'm using it to edit rust code, and it's great that it works out of the box. I was looking for something feature comparable to vs-code, and struggled with emacs and neovim plugins. It is changing, but I've been happy with it for the last 6 months.
TwentyPosts 4y ago
I think it's great. I picked it up on a whim, and it then managed to turn into my default (code) editor. The good: -Closeness to Vim and the floating option menu (if you eg. press g, it shows you what options you have in the lower right of the screen) make it really easy to learn and be productive with -Some amazing defaults. m (for select inner word, delimiter, function, class, etc.) is great, the multi-cursor mode is absolutely amazing and wipes the floor with Vim's "search and replace" functionality for all sorts of reasons. -Multi-cursor mode and the s-key (take a selection, filter by regex) is absolutely amazing in general. Makes it incredibly easy to perform repetitive edits. -All sorts of stuff just works -Built in treesitter for movements and highlighting, and built-in LSP support which works great -Helix makes NeoVim look old and crufty. When loading NeoVim it was common to run into annoyances with plugins, where it felt like various plugins or functionalities are "fighting" each other over control. Helix feels very slick and modern in comparison, -you don't need 90% of the classic vim plugins most people use, since they're already built into the program The bad: -Still lacks certain features, apparently softwrapping lines at screen-width is currently being worked on, and that's a feature I've been waiting for -Can't do some of the fancy stuff you can do with vim plugins, eg. LaTeX support with PDF-viewer connection, or Jupyter notebooks, or whatever sort of highly specific thing you might want to do -Not as good at editing plaintext as Vim. Vim has eg. das ~ "delete as sentence", Helix doesn't. Couple that with lack of softwrapping (for now), and it's a pain It's pretty great, and I see no reason not to use it. I run into situations where Helix isn't suitable (eg. LaTeX or plaintext), and then I just switch to regular NeoVim. The keybinds are close enough that it's easy to switch back and forth
- patrickkidger 4y ago
  Heads-up that soft-wrap is now supported at HEAD! https://docs.helix-editor.com/master/configuration.html#editorsoft-wrap-section https://docs.helix-editor.com/master/configuration.html#edit...
jonas-w 4y ago
I use it daily and i love the way it works more like kankoune. But it definitely misses support for multiple lsp's per file and plugins. Otherwise it just works. With `hx --health` you can see what executable you need to have a specific LSP working and most of the languages are really zero conf. I'm also using the master branch version, as the last release is some time ago, but it still works even though it is not a "stable releae".

newaccount2023 4y ago

I want to like helix and have tried to daily-drive it it just seems missing so much still a quick example - in emacs, I can do "comment-region" and I will get to comment out a selection with the right comment sequence - afaik even something as simple as that doesn't work in helix so many other things minor modes are important...in emacs I can have spell checking as a "minor mode" when editing markdown...how do I do this in helix? easy support for lsp is fine but that means helix is useless if you don't have lsp for a file format you are working on...like .txt! emacs is still a great TEXT editor maybe one day helix will be an option, not today

johnchristopher 4y ago

It looks nice and fresh but I don't understand how to quickly add support for a language. hx --health show red crosses everywhere, LSP column has red crosses with elm-lang, elvish, etc. or None. Documentation about adding languages seems more about adding new languages. What should I do to get niceties ? edit: ah, thanks search engine then arch wiki then https://docs.helix-editor.com/languages.html https://docs.helix-editor.com/languages.html then https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/How-to-install-the-default-language-servers https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/wiki/How-to-install-th...

doix 4y ago

It gets brought up a lot in vim discussions. It's missing a few major things for me; 1. Tabs (like in vim). I've found only vim and emacs have tabs in a way that makes sense to me. Kakoune also has a cool model, where I can use my window manager (or tmux) to recreate tabs. 2. Code folding, I like to fold everything as soon as I open a file to get an "overview" and then slowly unfold as look into the details. Wasn't in Helix last time I checked. 3. Narrowing. Emacs has it built in [0], (neo)vim requires a plugin [1]. Similar to code folding, when I'm working on a large function, I want to pretend it's the entirety of my buffer. Other than that, I'm not convinced that changing the order of key combinations makes sense. Kakoune did the same, I'm not a fan. I spent too long "thinking" in vim mode. I think it's great at bringing the "floor" up, it's much easier to get productive in helix. But the ceiling is lower than vim. [0] https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Narrowing.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Na... [1] https://github.com/hoschi/yode-nvim https://github.com/hoschi/yode-nvim

patrickkidger 4y ago
FWIW, Helix does have tabs. (Set `editor.bufferline = True` in `config.toml` in order to have them listed.)
- doix 4y ago
  These are not tabs the way vim does tabs. It just shows you which buffers you have opened. Vim tabs allow you to quickly switch between collections of windows. Here's a better explanation written by someone else[0] [0] https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2295#issuecomment-1273743694 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2295#issuecomme...
llimllib 4y ago
It’s also missing a “format region” key code equivalent to `gq`, which is what ended my attempt to use it
- patrickkidger 4y ago
  There is the option to `auto-format` on save, if that helps. (FWIW I use neither, and format via pre-commit hooks instead of in-editor.)
  - llimllib 4y ago
    it doesn't - I use `gq` frequently to format things without the LSP, a concept that helix lacks completely. An example is: I write a long comment string on one line, then `Vgq` breaks it into a comment block according to the line width I have set for the file.
- dmix 4y ago
  Oh I couldn't live without that.

anon23432343 4y ago

I can't use it because it does not support multi LSP for one file. For example if you have typescript and eslint. Helix right now can't run both. So you would need to run eslint in the terminal.

enriquto 4y ago

Just my graybeard opinions: - Love the possibility to download a single-file static executable that works out of the box, without need for a bizarre install method - Love that basic vim keybindings work - Hate that it does not come with a manpage hx.1 - Mildly annoyed by the default look and feel (line numbers taking horizontal space so that my code does not fit on the 80 column terminal, ugly white bar at the bottom, ugly negative-contrast completion hints, lines longer than 70 columns silently disappear to the right of the screen forcing me to do very unergonomical horizontal scroll, tabs should be 8 spaces by default not 2) - There's really nothing wrong with this program, but it just feels like a vim clone, and I don't see the point to move from vim in my case.

ctvo 4y ago
> - There's really nothing wrong with this program, but it just feels like a vim clone, and I don't see the point to move from vim in my case. It's a vim clone that works out of the box with LSP support, telescope, etc. that would require hours of plugin tinkering toil. I don't need to manage, configure, update, and depend on plugin authors. It's great. I install it on every host I need to interact with. Quality of life things like `helix --health` further reduces toil.
- enriquto 4y ago
  Thanks for the explanation. I guess that these features are important for their users, but I'm definitely not one of them. (In fact, lsp is so ugly that it's a positive feature not to support it, but I digress...)

marliechiller 4y ago

Always wanted to try it but the biggest barrier to me is that if I were to pick this up, it would not be available on all machines where as vi is.

freefrog334433 4y ago

I'm using it to edit rust code, and it's great that it works out of the box. I was looking for something feature comparable to vs-code, and struggled with emacs and neovim plugins. It is changing, but I've been happy with it for the last 6 months.

TwentyPosts 4y ago

I think it's great. I picked it up on a whim, and it then managed to turn into my default (code) editor. The good: -Closeness to Vim and the floating option menu (if you eg. press g, it shows you what options you have in the lower right of the screen) make it really easy to learn and be productive with -Some amazing defaults. m (for select inner word, delimiter, function, class, etc.) is great, the multi-cursor mode is absolutely amazing and wipes the floor with Vim's "search and replace" functionality for all sorts of reasons. -Multi-cursor mode and the s-key (take a selection, filter by regex) is absolutely amazing in general. Makes it incredibly easy to perform repetitive edits. -All sorts of stuff just works -Built in treesitter for movements and highlighting, and built-in LSP support which works great -Helix makes NeoVim look old and crufty. When loading NeoVim it was common to run into annoyances with plugins, where it felt like various plugins or functionalities are "fighting" each other over control. Helix feels very slick and modern in comparison, -you don't need 90% of the classic vim plugins most people use, since they're already built into the program The bad: -Still lacks certain features, apparently softwrapping lines at screen-width is currently being worked on, and that's a feature I've been waiting for -Can't do some of the fancy stuff you can do with vim plugins, eg. LaTeX support with PDF-viewer connection, or Jupyter notebooks, or whatever sort of highly specific thing you might want to do -Not as good at editing plaintext as Vim. Vim has eg. das ~ "delete as sentence", Helix doesn't. Couple that with lack of softwrapping (for now), and it's a pain It's pretty great, and I see no reason not to use it. I run into situations where Helix isn't suitable (eg. LaTeX or plaintext), and then I just switch to regular NeoVim. The keybinds are close enough that it's easy to switch back and forth

patrickkidger 4y ago
Heads-up that soft-wrap is now supported at HEAD! https://docs.helix-editor.com/master/configuration.html#editorsoft-wrap-section https://docs.helix-editor.com/master/configuration.html#edit...

jonas-w 4y ago

I use it daily and i love the way it works more like kankoune. But it definitely misses support for multiple lsp's per file and plugins. Otherwise it just works. With `hx --health` you can see what executable you need to have a specific LSP working and most of the languages are really zero conf. I'm also using the master branch version, as the last release is some time ago, but it still works even though it is not a "stable releae".