11 ms·

Helix Editor 25.07

331 points by matrixhelix 1y ago

zenlot 1y ago
Love Helix. Congrats. Good looking default theme. Sensible defaults. Literally install and use, no configuration needed. Well I haven't replaced my IDE with it , but set alias of vi to it and made it as $EDITOR for all quick cli edits. So now whenever I need to do quick debugging edits in k9s, it calls for Helix.
alwinw 1y ago
Looking forward to the new file picker! Now to wait for evilhelix (https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix) to sync with upstream
MoreQARespect 1y ago
Does it do code folding yet?
- timeon 1y ago
  Not yet.
- jtrn 1y ago
  Here is the forum post that convinced me NOT to continue getting into Helix. It says all I need about the project health. And given the development since then, I am more confident that it’s a bad horse to bet on. https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/1840#issuecomment-2427603088 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/1840#issuecomme...
  - ByGhacaxda 1y ago
    I've never used Helix and I likely never will, so I've got no horse in this race. But code folding, seriously? I'd be totally against it. It's yet another editor feature that ties your source code to tooling. It allows you to write too large and too many functions, while keeping the code readable to yourself. Source code should be readable (mostly) independently of tooling. It should be readable when printed to paper. (This is also why type inference in languages that aren't inherently functional languages is incredibly stupid; I understand that the compiler can infer the type under "auto", but now, when reviewing the code, I too must. Who the fuck wants that, seriously.) And I'm unsure what your problem is with the discussion in the ticket. I've now read the first comment (the feature request), and the last comment (the one you highlighted). Both sound totally reasonable to me.
    - freedomben 1y ago
      Could not agree more with everything you said. I hate code folding because it leads to giant functions and blocks that are way too big, but because of the folding people don't have to look at it and scroll (which if they did, they would be much less inclined to write and ship such shit in the first place). Same with type inference. It's almost no effort to write out the type, and it's eminently readable. With type inference, it's not at all obvious. I usually get "well you can just hover over it with the IDE and it will tell you the type." I don't want to have to hover over stuff just to see the type! Not only is that a major downgrade from the previous state where it was just "String some_str" or whatever, but having to pause and grab the mouse and move it over to the variable is majorly disruptive to reading and requires me to use a mouse (which I don't normally use). Also, I use neovim, not whatever IDE you use and think everyone else must use. I likewise thought the final response linked to was great. It was straightforward and to the point.
      - MoreQARespect 1y ago
        The way to prevent giant classes and methods is with linting rules, not by crippling your text editor. type inference makes code waaaaaay less verbose which aids readability.
    - eviks 1y ago
      > It should be readable when printed to paper. Why should anyone waste time targeting a dead use case?
      - teo_zero 1y ago
        Right. But if we replace 'paper' with 'webpage' the parent post is still relevant.
        eviks 1y ago
        Web page can run (and some code-focused pages do) code folding code, so the question is still relevant with minor modification. The whole premise of losing productivity and spending time in the most common case to support underpowered rare use cases is deeply flawed. It's similar to the argument for using bad defaults in config/keybinds 99% of the time just because in 1% of the time you would use another computer without your customizations.
  - dcre 1y ago
    I don't see the problem. It's a great result: (paraphrasing) "people arguing about whether code folding is useful or not is pointless. we're going to do it eventually but not right now." What's wrong with that?
    - MoreQARespect 1y ago
      It's fine that they dont want to do it or dont want to do it yet. Still, I wasn't especially impressed with "code folding is hard, we might do it one day but don't hold your breath" from an editor that purports to be a replacement for vim or neovim.
      - dcre 1y ago
        Development is a bit slow because there are only a few maintainers, but also because they have a strong vision and are very aggressive about prioritization and rejecting features that don’t fit. This is why Helix is so good and so focused a tool.
    - jtrn 1y ago
      In therapy, I love the thought experiment of "What could he have said instead?" and WHY did he choose THIS exact phrasing, out of the millions of approaches he could have chosen? Say that he is concerned about the time required for the project and only wants to safeguard the project. The post could convey the exact same message like this: --- Alternative fictional answer by maintainer--- Confirming that code folding is a planned feature. It's a high-impact addition, but the implementation is non-trivial and requires careful design. The primary blocker is technical: our current buffer and positioning logic (see src/core/text_object.rs). A correct implementation requires a significant refactor of how we map logical buffer lines to visual screen positions. Because core dev time is focused on xxx, a community-led effort is the most realistic path forward for this feature. I can provide review and guidance, but won't have the bandwidth to drive the implementation myself in the near term. If anybody want to contribute, Analyze the groundwork in PR #6417. I'm keeping this issue open for high-level implementation strategies. Please take detailed design proposals to a new thread in Discussions to keep this focused. Off-topic comments will be removed. --- end of fictional answer --- Basically, it all comes down to the vibe each response gives off. The real post is a classic "Do Not Enter" sign. The maintainer acts like the only one with the keys, essentially saying, "This is too hard for you, so don't even bother." It shuts the door on anyone who might want to help, which means the project is stuck waiting for that one person to have free time. My rewritten version is more like leaving the door open for other smart people. The attitude is, "Look, this is a tricky problem and I'm swamped. If you're up for a real challenge, here’s the map to get started." It respects other developers' skills and invites them to be part of the solution. I think the key to a great open-source project is that you have to actively build a team you can trust. You do that by giving people a real chance to contribute, learn the hard stuff, and eventually share the load. That's the only way a project grows beyond a one-person show and actually sticks around for the long haul.
  - yoavm 1y ago
    What's so bad about this? I skimmed through it and it seems like it was handled quite well. Curious what you're learning from it about the project health.
klaussilveira 1y ago
Very sad that Helix still doesn't have Sublime-like multi-caret support. All I want is to Ctrl + Click and Shift + Alt + Arrows.
- warmwaffles 1y ago
  It has multi cursor support. `Shift+C` to expand down one line or you can split the cursor based on select. Collapse all of them with `,`
- ta8645 1y ago
  > All I want is ... Understandable, for sure, but the number of users who want their own "simple" addition means it gets overwhelming pretty quickly. Helix has deferred work on most extra functionality until after implementing a Scheme extension language. Once that's done, adding features might be as simple as installing a plugin.
  - agumonkey 1y ago
    Wait, helix will get scheme before gnu emacs, aww
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    Authors are free to do as they please, but as an entitled member of the peanut gallery…aren’t there already enough small configuration languages? Seems like a distraction when there are already hundreds of schemes, Lua, Janet, etc.
    - mananaysiempre 1y ago
      In that case, Kakoune[1] (Helix’s main inspiration) is probably more your jam. You get an RPC interface and are free to script it from anything you want (shell to Rust is about the range I’ve encountered). It does mean that you don’t get the batteries you get with Helix (e.g. LSP support) and need to bring your own (e.g. kakoune-lsp[2]). [1] https://kakoune.org/ https://kakoune.org/ [2] https://github.com/kakoune-lsp/kakoune-lsp https://github.com/kakoune-lsp/kakoune-lsp
homebrewer 1y ago
Helix is the most interesting editor I've seen in a while. Very sane configuration — my config includes just one line to change the default theme to something with more contrast. No "AI" shit pushed down your throat, and it takes the vim idea of applying actions to blocks of code, and swaps them around — you first select the code, and then apply an action to it. So you get visual feedback before doing the action and can clearly see what's going to be changed without having to spam visual mode all the time. There was a decent article recently which explains some of the things I like in it also: https://herecomesthemoon.net/2025/06/i-like-helix/ https://herecomesthemoon.net/2025/06/i-like-helix/
- 90s_dev 1y ago
  It looks very interesting and I'd love to support it, but editors that must be modal are difficult for me to use, personally. Editors that are not modal can be made modal, but can modal editors be made non-modal?
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    Have you ever used a modal editor? It takes the smallest bit of brain training to adapt, but feels more logical for long form coding. I spend a lot more time reading code than writing. Having more tools to grep/highlight/move text in one mode is quite productive.
    - magackame 1y ago
      People who give vim some time split in two camps: - how can you use a modal editor!? - how can you use a nonmodal editor!?
    - 90s_dev 1y ago
      I used vim for a few years about 15 years ago, yes. It's not that it's difficult for me, it's that it's unnatural for me. Different people's minds work differently.
      - 1y ago
lynndotpy 1y ago
I love Helix, I highly recommend it to anyone who never quite got on board with vim but likes the idea of it. I found it much easier to learn and use, and it is distinguished from other vimlikes in that it's got a useful starting configuration.
- xmonkee 1y ago
  I really really like it. I honestly think they should wrap it in a GUI with some conveniences like a mouse based file browser and it can compete well with vscode.
  - ssernikk 1y ago
    Zed has Helix keybindings now! https://zed.dev/ https://zed.dev/
    - jcalabro 1y ago
      Have you found them to work well and be consistent? I've been a helix user for a couple years now, and I found Zed's helix keybindings to be inaccurate. Either that or I have some config options set that were confounding them. Curious how your experience with them has been?
    - e12e 1y ago
      Not quite yet ... https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/33580 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/33580
    - k_bx 1y ago
      Off-topic, but kudos to Zed as being the first editor to actually allow me do Emacs keybindings which don't suck. Requires configuration, but overall it works and I use it alongside my regular Emacs. Feels great!
    - Oreb 1y ago
      Even as someone who uses both Helix and Zed, I don’t find Zed’s Helix keybindings very useful. There is still too much basic stuff missing. The biggest one to me personally is that the “gw” command does not seem to be implemented.
vouaobrasil 1y ago
Very nice to see a text editor that is very capable, yet still minimal and not focused on including a bunch of useless AI features.
- 38 1y ago
  > minimal https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/6187 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/6187
  - OptionX 1y ago
    111mb is bloat apparently in a time where storage is in the terabytes.
    - johnisgood 1y ago
      111 MB for a text editor is acceptable? I mean I get it, "we" are getting conditioned to it, but...
      - OptionX 1y ago
        The editor is 10mb. It's the grammar files that are represent the bulk, and those are optional. And yes. Complaining about 100mb nowadays is ridiculous. You probably have larger logfiles sitting somewhere in disk doing nothing right now, regardless of your OS.
        bigfatkitten 1y ago
        And it’s a 10MB static binary I can just drop into ~/.local/bin and have Just Work(tm)
        johnisgood 1y ago
        I know, I was talking about a hypothetical text editor being 100 MB (without grammar files). And those log files can be easily wiped or rotated (i.e. compressed, which can greatly reduce their size), as they should. You do not do the same with your other files, do you?
Xiol32 1y ago
I really wanted to like Helix, and for the most part did, but there is something about the way undo works that just feels incredibly wrong to me. What it wants to undo doesn't always seem logical and always undoes too much. I've lost work because of it in the past.
- latexr 1y ago
  I agree the undo is sometimes a bit weird, as is the “repeat last command”. However, the rest of it is so nice that I keep Helix as my main editor. How did you lose work, though, could you not redo?
  - Xiol32 1y ago
    I think I panicked at the amount it has undone and then in my attempt to redo, made a change and got myself into a mess with the history. It was quite early on in my time with it.
- suby 1y ago
  There are two things that consciously bug me about undo, * When you press undo, and the content to be undone isn't on the screen, it will jump your screen to the relevant section (good) but also with that same keypress actually undo the content (bad). Other editors, if the content is not on the screen, will not perform the undo action unless the content is actually visible. When I press undo in Helix, I'm always taking a moment to figure out what has actually changed because of this. * This is a conscious decision by the Helix creator, so it's unlikely to change, but undo is not granular enough. It's chunked per insert mode operation. So you could type the entirety of a tale of two cities while in insert mode, you could be in insert mode for 30 minutes, and then go back to normal mode -- at this point, if you press undo once, the entirety of what you did in insert mode is undone. There is a feature where you can explicitly give the editor a save point for undo, and you're expected to press the key manually at your desired undo points. I really don't like this at all. I have bound some keys such as spacebar to this save point, so I get more granular undo, but this has some consequences such as clearing any selections that are currently present. I couldn't figure out a way to fix this without any side effects unfortunately. I like Helix a lot, and I have no intention of changing editors, but there are some default behaviors which I think are absolutely baffling, and the undo granularity + expectation that you manually save checkpoints for undo is one of them.
diffrinse 1y ago
I terribly need a vim-like with Helix all-in-one comprehensiveness. Neovim distributions are too loosely coupled and always have some odd sharp edge. Vim and its interfaces needs some rethinking anyway, but keep Action-Object modal orientation.
- diffrinse 1y ago
  Maybe Evil-Helix[0] is what's called for. Still seems like it has lots of edges. [0]https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix
- meindnoch 1y ago
  What is Action-Object modal orientation?
  - diffrinse 1y ago
    Yeah that's not a good way of describing, its more like Verb-Direction-Subject, e.g. `d3f(` means "delete up to the 3rd opening paren"; `2f.` means "move cursor to the 2nd found '.' character"; but there are exceptions when the subject is implicit, like `5j` means "Move down 5 physical lines". Helix reverses bindings so that subject is first and verb is second
spapas82 1y ago
Helix is great and includes a lot of stuff out of the box (file pickers, syntax highlighting, linting etc) without any configuration or installing plugins (contrary to vim or neovim). I would definitely use it but the main disadvantage is that some keybindings work differently than vim. I understand that the keybindings may be better that the vim ones but after years of using vim I expect "x" in normal mode to delete the character under the cursor or "d" to wait for the motion before deleting anything. When this does not happen I get confused and angry. I think this would be a problem with most people that are using vim; it's very difficult to change your habits especially since you can't ever escape from vim because of its ubiquity. Thankfully, some good people have released evil-helix, a soft fork of Helix which introduces Vim keybindings https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix ; I tried it and it works great so I'll totally recommend it to people that have my problems. As a final notice, helix (and evil-helix) works great in Windows (cmd). No need to install rust or anything. Get the .exe and you're gtg.
- mmcromp 1y ago
  For me, the issue isn't that I'm unwilling to learn new things. It's that I cannot use these keybindings anywhere else. Almost all online editors and workstations have some sort of vim keybindings. When I ssh into a Linux machine I can trust it has vim editor. It's like qwerty keyboard, I'm sure that there's better layouts but I just cannot discard the flexibility of being able to jump on most machines and be 99% productive almost instantly.
  - dpatterbee 1y ago
    Honestly, I don't think this is a big deal. I use helix as my primary editor, but when I'm on another machine and it only has vi or whatever I just use that and I can mentally switch to using the vim keybinds with little issue. Like sometimes I'll mistakenly `m-i-w-c` instead of `c-i-w` or `d` instead of `x`, but then I just hit `u` and continue.
    - 4b11b4 1y ago
      I know right
jebarker 1y ago
I’m excited to try this remotely with DAP
varbhat 1y ago
Congrats! I am happy for helix but i don't think it's a good fit for me. I use Neovim. It does what i want it to do. It's one of the best available options. But, i am not completely satisfied with it. I personally want an editor with following: * Modern codebase. Written from scratch. * VIM Keybindings: I have muscle memory of Vim. I would like to use Vim Keybindings in my editor. I don't want to use any other keybindings even if they are proclaimed to be better. It must walk like vim and quack like vim. * Good defaults. I hate configuring a lot. Neovim requires configuring a lot and need not always provide good defaults if it provided. Helix might have gotten this right. * Based on Treesitter. Better they run Treesitter parsers as a WASM in WASM runtime just like how Zed and latest Neovim do. * Extension System. But, I don't really favor lua, js or scheme. They just aren't my cup of tea. Maybe make it a wasm module with only necessary functions exposed to it. And configuration of those plugins in non turning complete configuration language. * TUI and optional GUI * LSP,DAP and Snippets support built-in(along with auto complete/suggestions, UI for Testing and Debugging) * Oil.nvim like FS as buffer built-in * Telescope/FZF-lua style Search built-in * Git integration built-in (Maybe magit/neogit like GIT UI is welcome) * Flash.nvim style Treesitter based Code AST Manipulation and Jump-to by label built-in * Macros and Multi cursors * Optional Cursor Style AI integration (Chat UI)
- dman 1y ago
  Its not very clear to me which of these Helix hasnt hit. To me it looks like Helix is very close to what you are looking for.
  - f_devd 1y ago
    Only extension system, but honestly I've never missed it in 3y of usage coming from nvim.
    - varbhat 1y ago
      vim keybinding. helix doesn't have vim keybindings. it might or might not be better but it isn't vim keybinding.
  - 1y ago
alberth 1y ago
Does anyone know which terminal is being used in the screencast? I'm asking because I noticed slight pixel misalignments in some of the videos. For example, in the File Explorer demo, the window border isn't a solid outline—it has small gaps in the frame. I’m wondering if using a terminal like Ghostty might fix that.
- jamesbvaughan 1y ago
  They're actually not videos! They're using asciinema: https://asciinema.org/ https://asciinema.org/, which is rendering actual text in the webpage - try selecting some while the recording is playing.
rightbyte 1y ago
Heh. A "post-modern" editor. The second best joke since Fish's "Finally a command line shell for the 90s". And looking at the video it seems to be tui based. Nice. Gave me Emacs tui vibes.
DavidHaerer 1y ago
I love the example with git blame for the current line. Helix is my daily driver alongside lazygit, however I much appreciate a tighter integration of Git in Helix. A colleague showed me what he can do with magit in emacs, and that was some next-level stuff (e.g. cycling the buffer through the Git history of the file). Previously I was using Neovim, but I'm really happy with my switch to Helix. So much less config, keybindings I find more intuitive and multi-cursor editing. For agentic coding I'm looking into Aider and OpenCode. I expect a tool like that to join my terminal setup with Helix and lazygit.
sysashi 1y ago
Been using helix for over a year (mostly Elixir development) after a decade of (neo)vim, very happy so far! My config file is like 10 lines long :D Congrats on the release!
GrantMoyer 1y ago
I'd love for Helix to implement a "Kakoune mode". I develop on Windows at work, where Kakoune is not ideal, so Helix seems like it'd be a perfect fit, except I can't get over the keybindings. Its keybinding philosophy encourages verbosity instead of Kakoune's terseness, which bothers me more than it probably should, and as far as I can tell its keymap configuration isn't yet powerful enough to emulate Kakoune well. Vim's inconsistent keybinds and behavior are what pushed me to Kakoune — which I find has more consistent and elegant bindings and behavior — in the first place, and Helix feels like a step backwards on that front.
theappsecguy 1y ago
Love helix. Lots of features are still needed, but it’s an excellent editor
christophilus 1y ago
The file explorer is something I’ve been really wanting. But I really want to be able to quickly create, rename, delete the way I can in netrw. I use netrw like this all the time.
pinoy420 1y ago
[dead]
infogulch 1y ago
Injections / nested tree-sitter scopes is neat. I guess this means it can highlight html template code where html, js, css and the template syntax all have highlights?
albus0x 1y ago
Great editor, switched from neovim and can't get enough of it. The software where I really exited about new releases. No issues for me, and only good vibes ahead. Thanks devs
bitcrshr 1y ago
This is great. I have been daily driving Helix for a few years now and every release has been really exciting. Still anxiously waiting on a plugin system, but that’s more of a bonus than a need.
lukaslalinsky 1y ago
I'm a long time Vim user, and I really liked Helix when I tried it last year. On one hand, I very much like the cleanliness of the whole project. On the other hand, I'm one of those people who find AI assisted coding useful (not vibe coding, just auto complete, auto edit suggestion, possibility to select block and make it do change on it). This is why I eventually started to move to VS Code with Cody, despite being way more comfortable in modal editors.
cadamsdotcom 1y ago
Very detailed explanations. I learned a bunch about the syntax highlighting and code understanding in Helix & friends just from reading this. All the tree-sitter features and datastructures seem ideal for a query language to be bolted on - something that generalises beyond symbol search or “find all references” - guess since there’s an API this is a DSL for writing queries about your code. Does something like this exist?
- hazn 1y ago
  zed uses tree-sitter and has a powerful query engine (dsl is lisp scheme): https://zed.dev/blog/syntax-aware-editing#tree-queries https://zed.dev/blog/syntax-aware-editing#tree-queries
  - teo_zero 1y ago
    Does zed have anything like the 'locals' query that Helix has added in this version, according to TFA?
braggerxyz 1y ago
Life is to short to learn and memorize Vi / Helix keybinds. That's why I stay with Micro as terminal editor.
ADAMOsong 1y ago
[flagged]

331 points by matrixhelix 1y ago

Love Helix. Congrats. Good looking default theme. Sensible defaults. Literally install and use, no configuration needed. Well I haven't replaced my IDE with it , but set alias of vi to it and made it as $EDITOR for all quick cli edits. So now whenever I need to do quick debugging edits in k9s, it calls for Helix.

alwinw 1y ago

Looking forward to the new file picker! Now to wait for evilhelix (https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix) to sync with upstream

MoreQARespect 1y ago

Does it do code folding yet?

timeon 1y ago
Not yet.
jtrn 1y ago
Here is the forum post that convinced me NOT to continue getting into Helix. It says all I need about the project health. And given the development since then, I am more confident that it’s a bad horse to bet on. https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/1840#issuecomment-2427603088 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/1840#issuecomme...
- ByGhacaxda 1y ago
  I've never used Helix and I likely never will, so I've got no horse in this race. But code folding, seriously? I'd be totally against it. It's yet another editor feature that ties your source code to tooling. It allows you to write too large and too many functions, while keeping the code readable to yourself. Source code should be readable (mostly) independently of tooling. It should be readable when printed to paper. (This is also why type inference in languages that aren't inherently functional languages is incredibly stupid; I understand that the compiler can infer the type under "auto", but now, when reviewing the code, I too must. Who the fuck wants that, seriously.) And I'm unsure what your problem is with the discussion in the ticket. I've now read the first comment (the feature request), and the last comment (the one you highlighted). Both sound totally reasonable to me.
  - freedomben 1y ago
    Could not agree more with everything you said. I hate code folding because it leads to giant functions and blocks that are way too big, but because of the folding people don't have to look at it and scroll (which if they did, they would be much less inclined to write and ship such shit in the first place). Same with type inference. It's almost no effort to write out the type, and it's eminently readable. With type inference, it's not at all obvious. I usually get "well you can just hover over it with the IDE and it will tell you the type." I don't want to have to hover over stuff just to see the type! Not only is that a major downgrade from the previous state where it was just "String some_str" or whatever, but having to pause and grab the mouse and move it over to the variable is majorly disruptive to reading and requires me to use a mouse (which I don't normally use). Also, I use neovim, not whatever IDE you use and think everyone else must use. I likewise thought the final response linked to was great. It was straightforward and to the point.
    - MoreQARespect 1y ago
      The way to prevent giant classes and methods is with linting rules, not by crippling your text editor. type inference makes code waaaaaay less verbose which aids readability.
  - eviks 1y ago
    > It should be readable when printed to paper. Why should anyone waste time targeting a dead use case?
    - teo_zero 1y ago
      Right. But if we replace 'paper' with 'webpage' the parent post is still relevant.
      - eviks 1y ago
        Web page can run (and some code-focused pages do) code folding code, so the question is still relevant with minor modification. The whole premise of losing productivity and spending time in the most common case to support underpowered rare use cases is deeply flawed. It's similar to the argument for using bad defaults in config/keybinds 99% of the time just because in 1% of the time you would use another computer without your customizations.
- dcre 1y ago
  I don't see the problem. It's a great result: (paraphrasing) "people arguing about whether code folding is useful or not is pointless. we're going to do it eventually but not right now." What's wrong with that?
  - MoreQARespect 1y ago
    It's fine that they dont want to do it or dont want to do it yet. Still, I wasn't especially impressed with "code folding is hard, we might do it one day but don't hold your breath" from an editor that purports to be a replacement for vim or neovim.
    - dcre 1y ago
      Development is a bit slow because there are only a few maintainers, but also because they have a strong vision and are very aggressive about prioritization and rejecting features that don’t fit. This is why Helix is so good and so focused a tool.
  - jtrn 1y ago
    In therapy, I love the thought experiment of "What could he have said instead?" and WHY did he choose THIS exact phrasing, out of the millions of approaches he could have chosen? Say that he is concerned about the time required for the project and only wants to safeguard the project. The post could convey the exact same message like this: --- Alternative fictional answer by maintainer--- Confirming that code folding is a planned feature. It's a high-impact addition, but the implementation is non-trivial and requires careful design. The primary blocker is technical: our current buffer and positioning logic (see src/core/text_object.rs). A correct implementation requires a significant refactor of how we map logical buffer lines to visual screen positions. Because core dev time is focused on xxx, a community-led effort is the most realistic path forward for this feature. I can provide review and guidance, but won't have the bandwidth to drive the implementation myself in the near term. If anybody want to contribute, Analyze the groundwork in PR #6417. I'm keeping this issue open for high-level implementation strategies. Please take detailed design proposals to a new thread in Discussions to keep this focused. Off-topic comments will be removed. --- end of fictional answer --- Basically, it all comes down to the vibe each response gives off. The real post is a classic "Do Not Enter" sign. The maintainer acts like the only one with the keys, essentially saying, "This is too hard for you, so don't even bother." It shuts the door on anyone who might want to help, which means the project is stuck waiting for that one person to have free time. My rewritten version is more like leaving the door open for other smart people. The attitude is, "Look, this is a tricky problem and I'm swamped. If you're up for a real challenge, here’s the map to get started." It respects other developers' skills and invites them to be part of the solution. I think the key to a great open-source project is that you have to actively build a team you can trust. You do that by giving people a real chance to contribute, learn the hard stuff, and eventually share the load. That's the only way a project grows beyond a one-person show and actually sticks around for the long haul.
- yoavm 1y ago
  What's so bad about this? I skimmed through it and it seems like it was handled quite well. Curious what you're learning from it about the project health.

klaussilveira 1y ago

Very sad that Helix still doesn't have Sublime-like multi-caret support. All I want is to Ctrl + Click and Shift + Alt + Arrows.

warmwaffles 1y ago
It has multi cursor support. `Shift+C` to expand down one line or you can split the cursor based on select. Collapse all of them with `,`
ta8645 1y ago
> All I want is ... Understandable, for sure, but the number of users who want their own "simple" addition means it gets overwhelming pretty quickly. Helix has deferred work on most extra functionality until after implementing a Scheme extension language. Once that's done, adding features might be as simple as installing a plugin.
- agumonkey 1y ago
  Wait, helix will get scheme before gnu emacs, aww
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  Authors are free to do as they please, but as an entitled member of the peanut gallery…aren’t there already enough small configuration languages? Seems like a distraction when there are already hundreds of schemes, Lua, Janet, etc.
  - mananaysiempre 1y ago
    In that case, Kakoune[1] (Helix’s main inspiration) is probably more your jam. You get an RPC interface and are free to script it from anything you want (shell to Rust is about the range I’ve encountered). It does mean that you don’t get the batteries you get with Helix (e.g. LSP support) and need to bring your own (e.g. kakoune-lsp[2]). [1] https://kakoune.org/ https://kakoune.org/ [2] https://github.com/kakoune-lsp/kakoune-lsp https://github.com/kakoune-lsp/kakoune-lsp

homebrewer 1y ago

Helix is the most interesting editor I've seen in a while. Very sane configuration — my config includes just one line to change the default theme to something with more contrast. No "AI" shit pushed down your throat, and it takes the vim idea of applying actions to blocks of code, and swaps them around — you first select the code, and then apply an action to it. So you get visual feedback before doing the action and can clearly see what's going to be changed without having to spam visual mode all the time. There was a decent article recently which explains some of the things I like in it also: https://herecomesthemoon.net/2025/06/i-like-helix/ https://herecomesthemoon.net/2025/06/i-like-helix/

90s_dev 1y ago
It looks very interesting and I'd love to support it, but editors that must be modal are difficult for me to use, personally. Editors that are not modal can be made modal, but can modal editors be made non-modal?
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  Have you ever used a modal editor? It takes the smallest bit of brain training to adapt, but feels more logical for long form coding. I spend a lot more time reading code than writing. Having more tools to grep/highlight/move text in one mode is quite productive.
  - magackame 1y ago
    People who give vim some time split in two camps: - how can you use a modal editor!? - how can you use a nonmodal editor!?
  - 90s_dev 1y ago
    I used vim for a few years about 15 years ago, yes. It's not that it's difficult for me, it's that it's unnatural for me. Different people's minds work differently.
    - 1y ago

lynndotpy 1y ago

I love Helix, I highly recommend it to anyone who never quite got on board with vim but likes the idea of it. I found it much easier to learn and use, and it is distinguished from other vimlikes in that it's got a useful starting configuration.

xmonkee 1y ago
I really really like it. I honestly think they should wrap it in a GUI with some conveniences like a mouse based file browser and it can compete well with vscode.
- ssernikk 1y ago
  Zed has Helix keybindings now! https://zed.dev/ https://zed.dev/
  - jcalabro 1y ago
    Have you found them to work well and be consistent? I've been a helix user for a couple years now, and I found Zed's helix keybindings to be inaccurate. Either that or I have some config options set that were confounding them. Curious how your experience with them has been?
  - e12e 1y ago
    Not quite yet ... https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/33580 https://github.com/zed-industries/zed/discussions/33580
  - k_bx 1y ago
    Off-topic, but kudos to Zed as being the first editor to actually allow me do Emacs keybindings which don't suck. Requires configuration, but overall it works and I use it alongside my regular Emacs. Feels great!
  - Oreb 1y ago
    Even as someone who uses both Helix and Zed, I don’t find Zed’s Helix keybindings very useful. There is still too much basic stuff missing. The biggest one to me personally is that the “gw” command does not seem to be implemented.

vouaobrasil 1y ago

Very nice to see a text editor that is very capable, yet still minimal and not focused on including a bunch of useless AI features.

38 1y ago
> minimal https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/6187 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/6187
- OptionX 1y ago
  111mb is bloat apparently in a time where storage is in the terabytes.
  - johnisgood 1y ago
    111 MB for a text editor is acceptable? I mean I get it, "we" are getting conditioned to it, but...
    - OptionX 1y ago
      The editor is 10mb. It's the grammar files that are represent the bulk, and those are optional. And yes. Complaining about 100mb nowadays is ridiculous. You probably have larger logfiles sitting somewhere in disk doing nothing right now, regardless of your OS.
      - bigfatkitten 1y ago
        And it’s a 10MB static binary I can just drop into ~/.local/bin and have Just Work(tm)
      - johnisgood 1y ago
        I know, I was talking about a hypothetical text editor being 100 MB (without grammar files). And those log files can be easily wiped or rotated (i.e. compressed, which can greatly reduce their size), as they should. You do not do the same with your other files, do you?

Xiol32 1y ago

I really wanted to like Helix, and for the most part did, but there is something about the way undo works that just feels incredibly wrong to me. What it wants to undo doesn't always seem logical and always undoes too much. I've lost work because of it in the past.

latexr 1y ago
I agree the undo is sometimes a bit weird, as is the “repeat last command”. However, the rest of it is so nice that I keep Helix as my main editor. How did you lose work, though, could you not redo?
- Xiol32 1y ago
  I think I panicked at the amount it has undone and then in my attempt to redo, made a change and got myself into a mess with the history. It was quite early on in my time with it.
suby 1y ago
There are two things that consciously bug me about undo, * When you press undo, and the content to be undone isn't on the screen, it will jump your screen to the relevant section (good) but also with that same keypress actually undo the content (bad). Other editors, if the content is not on the screen, will not perform the undo action unless the content is actually visible. When I press undo in Helix, I'm always taking a moment to figure out what has actually changed because of this. * This is a conscious decision by the Helix creator, so it's unlikely to change, but undo is not granular enough. It's chunked per insert mode operation. So you could type the entirety of a tale of two cities while in insert mode, you could be in insert mode for 30 minutes, and then go back to normal mode -- at this point, if you press undo once, the entirety of what you did in insert mode is undone. There is a feature where you can explicitly give the editor a save point for undo, and you're expected to press the key manually at your desired undo points. I really don't like this at all. I have bound some keys such as spacebar to this save point, so I get more granular undo, but this has some consequences such as clearing any selections that are currently present. I couldn't figure out a way to fix this without any side effects unfortunately. I like Helix a lot, and I have no intention of changing editors, but there are some default behaviors which I think are absolutely baffling, and the undo granularity + expectation that you manually save checkpoints for undo is one of them.

diffrinse 1y ago

I terribly need a vim-like with Helix all-in-one comprehensiveness. Neovim distributions are too loosely coupled and always have some odd sharp edge. Vim and its interfaces needs some rethinking anyway, but keep Action-Object modal orientation.

diffrinse 1y ago
Maybe Evil-Helix[0] is what's called for. Still seems like it has lots of edges. [0]https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix
meindnoch 1y ago
What is Action-Object modal orientation?
- diffrinse 1y ago
  Yeah that's not a good way of describing, its more like Verb-Direction-Subject, e.g. `d3f(` means "delete up to the 3rd opening paren"; `2f.` means "move cursor to the 2nd found '.' character"; but there are exceptions when the subject is implicit, like `5j` means "Move down 5 physical lines". Helix reverses bindings so that subject is first and verb is second

spapas82 1y ago

Helix is great and includes a lot of stuff out of the box (file pickers, syntax highlighting, linting etc) without any configuration or installing plugins (contrary to vim or neovim). I would definitely use it but the main disadvantage is that some keybindings work differently than vim. I understand that the keybindings may be better that the vim ones but after years of using vim I expect "x" in normal mode to delete the character under the cursor or "d" to wait for the motion before deleting anything. When this does not happen I get confused and angry. I think this would be a problem with most people that are using vim; it's very difficult to change your habits especially since you can't ever escape from vim because of its ubiquity. Thankfully, some good people have released evil-helix, a soft fork of Helix which introduces Vim keybindings https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix ; I tried it and it works great so I'll totally recommend it to people that have my problems. As a final notice, helix (and evil-helix) works great in Windows (cmd). No need to install rust or anything. Get the .exe and you're gtg.

mmcromp 1y ago
For me, the issue isn't that I'm unwilling to learn new things. It's that I cannot use these keybindings anywhere else. Almost all online editors and workstations have some sort of vim keybindings. When I ssh into a Linux machine I can trust it has vim editor. It's like qwerty keyboard, I'm sure that there's better layouts but I just cannot discard the flexibility of being able to jump on most machines and be 99% productive almost instantly.
- dpatterbee 1y ago
  Honestly, I don't think this is a big deal. I use helix as my primary editor, but when I'm on another machine and it only has vi or whatever I just use that and I can mentally switch to using the vim keybinds with little issue. Like sometimes I'll mistakenly `m-i-w-c` instead of `c-i-w` or `d` instead of `x`, but then I just hit `u` and continue.
  - 4b11b4 1y ago
    I know right

jebarker 1y ago

I’m excited to try this remotely with DAP

varbhat 1y ago

Congrats! I am happy for helix but i don't think it's a good fit for me. I use Neovim. It does what i want it to do. It's one of the best available options. But, i am not completely satisfied with it. I personally want an editor with following: * Modern codebase. Written from scratch. * VIM Keybindings: I have muscle memory of Vim. I would like to use Vim Keybindings in my editor. I don't want to use any other keybindings even if they are proclaimed to be better. It must walk like vim and quack like vim. * Good defaults. I hate configuring a lot. Neovim requires configuring a lot and need not always provide good defaults if it provided. Helix might have gotten this right. * Based on Treesitter. Better they run Treesitter parsers as a WASM in WASM runtime just like how Zed and latest Neovim do. * Extension System. But, I don't really favor lua, js or scheme. They just aren't my cup of tea. Maybe make it a wasm module with only necessary functions exposed to it. And configuration of those plugins in non turning complete configuration language. * TUI and optional GUI * LSP,DAP and Snippets support built-in(along with auto complete/suggestions, UI for Testing and Debugging) * Oil.nvim like FS as buffer built-in * Telescope/FZF-lua style Search built-in * Git integration built-in (Maybe magit/neogit like GIT UI is welcome) * Flash.nvim style Treesitter based Code AST Manipulation and Jump-to by label built-in * Macros and Multi cursors * Optional Cursor Style AI integration (Chat UI)

dman 1y ago
Its not very clear to me which of these Helix hasnt hit. To me it looks like Helix is very close to what you are looking for.
- f_devd 1y ago
  Only extension system, but honestly I've never missed it in 3y of usage coming from nvim.
  - varbhat 1y ago
    vim keybinding. helix doesn't have vim keybindings. it might or might not be better but it isn't vim keybinding.
- 1y ago

alberth 1y ago

Does anyone know which terminal is being used in the screencast? I'm asking because I noticed slight pixel misalignments in some of the videos. For example, in the File Explorer demo, the window border isn't a solid outline—it has small gaps in the frame. I’m wondering if using a terminal like Ghostty might fix that.

jamesbvaughan 1y ago
They're actually not videos! They're using asciinema: https://asciinema.org/ https://asciinema.org/, which is rendering actual text in the webpage - try selecting some while the recording is playing.

rightbyte 1y ago

Heh. A "post-modern" editor. The second best joke since Fish's "Finally a command line shell for the 90s". And looking at the video it seems to be tui based. Nice. Gave me Emacs tui vibes.

DavidHaerer 1y ago

I love the example with git blame for the current line. Helix is my daily driver alongside lazygit, however I much appreciate a tighter integration of Git in Helix. A colleague showed me what he can do with magit in emacs, and that was some next-level stuff (e.g. cycling the buffer through the Git history of the file). Previously I was using Neovim, but I'm really happy with my switch to Helix. So much less config, keybindings I find more intuitive and multi-cursor editing. For agentic coding I'm looking into Aider and OpenCode. I expect a tool like that to join my terminal setup with Helix and lazygit.

sysashi 1y ago

Been using helix for over a year (mostly Elixir development) after a decade of (neo)vim, very happy so far! My config file is like 10 lines long :D Congrats on the release!

GrantMoyer 1y ago

I'd love for Helix to implement a "Kakoune mode". I develop on Windows at work, where Kakoune is not ideal, so Helix seems like it'd be a perfect fit, except I can't get over the keybindings. Its keybinding philosophy encourages verbosity instead of Kakoune's terseness, which bothers me more than it probably should, and as far as I can tell its keymap configuration isn't yet powerful enough to emulate Kakoune well. Vim's inconsistent keybinds and behavior are what pushed me to Kakoune — which I find has more consistent and elegant bindings and behavior — in the first place, and Helix feels like a step backwards on that front.

theappsecguy 1y ago

Love helix. Lots of features are still needed, but it’s an excellent editor

christophilus 1y ago

The file explorer is something I’ve been really wanting. But I really want to be able to quickly create, rename, delete the way I can in netrw. I use netrw like this all the time.

pinoy420 1y ago

[dead]

infogulch 1y ago

Injections / nested tree-sitter scopes is neat. I guess this means it can highlight html template code where html, js, css and the template syntax all have highlights?

albus0x 1y ago

Great editor, switched from neovim and can't get enough of it. The software where I really exited about new releases. No issues for me, and only good vibes ahead. Thanks devs

bitcrshr 1y ago

This is great. I have been daily driving Helix for a few years now and every release has been really exciting. Still anxiously waiting on a plugin system, but that’s more of a bonus than a need.

lukaslalinsky 1y ago

I'm a long time Vim user, and I really liked Helix when I tried it last year. On one hand, I very much like the cleanliness of the whole project. On the other hand, I'm one of those people who find AI assisted coding useful (not vibe coding, just auto complete, auto edit suggestion, possibility to select block and make it do change on it). This is why I eventually started to move to VS Code with Cody, despite being way more comfortable in modal editors.

cadamsdotcom 1y ago

Very detailed explanations. I learned a bunch about the syntax highlighting and code understanding in Helix & friends just from reading this. All the tree-sitter features and datastructures seem ideal for a query language to be bolted on - something that generalises beyond symbol search or “find all references” - guess since there’s an API this is a DSL for writing queries about your code. Does something like this exist?

hazn 1y ago
zed uses tree-sitter and has a powerful query engine (dsl is lisp scheme): https://zed.dev/blog/syntax-aware-editing#tree-queries https://zed.dev/blog/syntax-aware-editing#tree-queries
- teo_zero 1y ago
  Does zed have anything like the 'locals' query that Helix has added in this version, according to TFA?

braggerxyz 1y ago

Life is to short to learn and memorize Vi / Helix keybinds. That's why I stay with Micro as terminal editor.

ADAMOsong 1y ago

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