4 ms·

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

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.
  - 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
    It is wild to me that you could use vim for years and not like the modal style. To each their own, I would have bounced to emacs.
    - 90s_dev 1y ago
      I went from vim to emacs and used that for a few years, then moved to VS Code for the next 10 years or so. It's showing its age a bit lately, so I'm sure I'll try another one soon, which is why I looked at Helix. But I'm very glad there are very different editors for very different types of minds, just like how there are different ways to indent/format code. Programmers do not have one-size-fits-all minds, and we shouldn't design anything assuming they do/should. (Looking at you, Golang.)
    - iLemming 1y ago
      For some reason Emacs veterans keep waging wars against modality without acknowledging that Emacs is inherently modal - key chords create temporary modes, transient keymaps maintain states, the minibuffer is a distinct mode, and even fundamental concepts like the mark-active state and recursive editing demonstrate that Emacs has always embraced context-dependent behavior rather than being truly modeless.
- aquariusDue 1y ago
  Oh, wow. I really enjoy modal editors, especially the Kakoune model seen in Helix and meow-mode for Emacs but I could never put it into words why I actually preferred them. Yep, that's precisely it.
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]
echelon 1y ago
I wouldn't want to go from modal to non-modal. In fact, I have a hard time editing in web browser textareas and Google Docs because of the muscle memory of vimlike keybindings and how I've associated them with tactile keyboards. (Smartphones and tablets don't give me this problem since they feel different, but laptop/desktop Google Docs editing throws me for a loop.) Once you learn, modal is the way to go. It feels like playing a piano over an AST. It's so elegant for code and syntax trees. I've been using vim keybindings in vim and vimlikes (JetBrains IDEs and VS Code) for nearly twenty years now. I learned most of it within just my first three months and have picked up additional surface area every year. I would still call myself a novice relative to vim masters, but you can get a ton of value from the basic movements and chords and occasional macros. All that to say, the learning curve might look steep, but it's shallower than you think and certainly well worth it. The only reason I'd see non-modal being useful in a modal editor is as a crunch to learn and make the onboarding smoother. But you'd probably still want the first steps to be modal anyway, so I'm not sure it would provide much value. Just jump in. It feels weird and slow at first, but let it grow on you. It pays dividends.
- magackame 1y ago
  And then you start craving modal interfaces in your browser, file manager, terminal, messenger... Some Google Docs <=> markdown buffer as a modal editor feature (or a plugin) would be cool.
  - echelon 1y ago
    This, though I've always found the Chrome/Firefox vimlike browser plugins to be such second class citizens that they've never stuck with me. I used to use modal tiling window managers on Linux, but since window managers are always second class on Mac/Windows, that never stuck either. I bounce around too frequently for it to work. I just suffice with tmux for now. I was pleasantly surprised to find Discord's `s/search/replace` supported as an actual feature, though having it limited to just the last message is a bit limiting.
    - aquariusDue 1y ago
timeon 1y ago
Probably not, but there are many editors to choose from if you do not like it. Some people prefer just modal so editors like vim/helix/etc. are tailor-made for them.
aquova 1y ago
Sure, you can leave it in insert mode the entire time. I'm not sure that's really what you want though, as you'd effectively turn the editor into a basic notepad app.
eviks 1y ago
Modal editors can be (in principle) made non-modal by changing keybinds to combos that change modes behind your back, so you'll keep insert mode as your primary one. So strictly speaking, non-modal editors are the ones that force you into only one style But not sure real editors are as capable since some can have adverse actions on mode changes (e.g. resetting your selection or changing undo stack etc)
- iLemming 1y ago
  Yup, I know what you're talking about. Evil-mode in Emacs actually adds so many nice features and simplifies so many things outside of text editing, yet I've never seen anyone who dislikes modal editing actually install evil-mode and keep it disabled by default. Them Emacs veteran "nevervimmers" are missing out.

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.
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y ago
  It is wild to me that you could use vim for years and not like the modal style. To each their own, I would have bounced to emacs.
  - 90s_dev 1y ago
    I went from vim to emacs and used that for a few years, then moved to VS Code for the next 10 years or so. It's showing its age a bit lately, so I'm sure I'll try another one soon, which is why I looked at Helix. But I'm very glad there are very different editors for very different types of minds, just like how there are different ways to indent/format code. Programmers do not have one-size-fits-all minds, and we shouldn't design anything assuming they do/should. (Looking at you, Golang.)
  - iLemming 1y ago
    For some reason Emacs veterans keep waging wars against modality without acknowledging that Emacs is inherently modal - key chords create temporary modes, transient keymaps maintain states, the minibuffer is a distinct mode, and even fundamental concepts like the mark-active state and recursive editing demonstrate that Emacs has always embraced context-dependent behavior rather than being truly modeless.
aquariusDue 1y ago
Oh, wow. I really enjoy modal editors, especially the Kakoune model seen in Helix and meow-mode for Emacs but I could never put it into words why I actually preferred them. Yep, that's precisely it.

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]

echelon 1y ago

I wouldn't want to go from modal to non-modal. In fact, I have a hard time editing in web browser textareas and Google Docs because of the muscle memory of vimlike keybindings and how I've associated them with tactile keyboards. (Smartphones and tablets don't give me this problem since they feel different, but laptop/desktop Google Docs editing throws me for a loop.) Once you learn, modal is the way to go. It feels like playing a piano over an AST. It's so elegant for code and syntax trees. I've been using vim keybindings in vim and vimlikes (JetBrains IDEs and VS Code) for nearly twenty years now. I learned most of it within just my first three months and have picked up additional surface area every year. I would still call myself a novice relative to vim masters, but you can get a ton of value from the basic movements and chords and occasional macros. All that to say, the learning curve might look steep, but it's shallower than you think and certainly well worth it. The only reason I'd see non-modal being useful in a modal editor is as a crunch to learn and make the onboarding smoother. But you'd probably still want the first steps to be modal anyway, so I'm not sure it would provide much value. Just jump in. It feels weird and slow at first, but let it grow on you. It pays dividends.

magackame 1y ago
And then you start craving modal interfaces in your browser, file manager, terminal, messenger... Some Google Docs <=> markdown buffer as a modal editor feature (or a plugin) would be cool.
- echelon 1y ago
  This, though I've always found the Chrome/Firefox vimlike browser plugins to be such second class citizens that they've never stuck with me. I used to use modal tiling window managers on Linux, but since window managers are always second class on Mac/Windows, that never stuck either. I bounce around too frequently for it to work. I just suffice with tmux for now. I was pleasantly surprised to find Discord's `s/search/replace` supported as an actual feature, though having it limited to just the last message is a bit limiting.
  - aquariusDue 1y ago

timeon 1y ago

Probably not, but there are many editors to choose from if you do not like it. Some people prefer just modal so editors like vim/helix/etc. are tailor-made for them.

aquova 1y ago

Sure, you can leave it in insert mode the entire time. I'm not sure that's really what you want though, as you'd effectively turn the editor into a basic notepad app.

eviks 1y ago

Modal editors can be (in principle) made non-modal by changing keybinds to combos that change modes behind your back, so you'll keep insert mode as your primary one. So strictly speaking, non-modal editors are the ones that force you into only one style But not sure real editors are as capable since some can have adverse actions on mode changes (e.g. resetting your selection or changing undo stack etc)

iLemming 1y ago
Yup, I know what you're talking about. Evil-mode in Emacs actually adds so many nice features and simplifies so many things outside of text editing, yet I've never seen anyone who dislikes modal editing actually install evil-mode and keep it disabled by default. Them Emacs veteran "nevervimmers" are missing out.