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Beginner-friendly, unofficial documentation for Helix text editor

205 points by Curiositry 11mo ago

anhner 11mo ago
your descriptions of what the j and k keys do in normal mode are reversed: j moves the cursor one line BELOW and k moves the cursor one line ABOVE.
linsomniac 11mo ago
I keep meaning to get back into Helix, I'm super close to setting up an "vi=hx" alias. I had Claude make me a cheat sheet, but I haven't gone over it, here it is if it helps anyone: https://box.linsomniac.com/HelixCheatSheet.pdf https://box.linsomniac.com/HelixCheatSheet.pdf
- hit8run 11mo ago
  Your cheatsheet has some hallucinations in there. For example there is no :git command you can do "! git status" etc There is some other integration for git like SPACE + g to see file changes for example
  - linsomniac 11mo ago
    Thanks for pointing that out, I'm planning on switching to helix this week and seeing how it goes, and once I do I'll dig deeper into a cheat sheet. There's another comment on this thread that has a cheatsheet that is probably a better place to start, but I had never run across it before: https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet
- abuani 11mo ago
  Heh, "vi=hx" was exactly how I forced myself to spend a week in helix. Just go for it
cadamsdotcom 11mo ago
Great to see so much Helix content on HN lately. Excited to give it a try!
- abuani 11mo ago
  It's the first editor since probably sublime text that I've genuinely enjoyed. Useful without any configuration, and very easy to get a productive environment. There's a few rough edges that I'm trying to work through. I've been able to solve my "open in X" like key bindings. But I have yet to get things like "run test for current method". That's probably the biggest pain point I've had so far
shoy 11mo ago
A while ago I made a dense cheat sheet for Helix. It's a touch out of date, but still possibly useful. https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet
- hit8run 11mo ago
  Hey nice to have you here. I found your cheatsheet and printed it out a while ago :D
  - shoy 11mo ago
    I'm glad you liked it. I keep meaning to update it (work and life get in the way), if the demand is there. (edited for grammar)
    - backscratches 11mo ago
      Looking forward to when you might! Also have this on my wall
- stefanka 11mo ago
  It’s great! How did you do it? I printed it out months ago and wondered how to do one myself
  - leobg 11mo ago
    +1
  - shoy 11mo ago
    Manually, using Omnigraffle. It's not text-driven like Mermaid or Typst. I made a list of all the commands in the docs, grouped them by similarity and then created tables in Omnigraffle. OG has a very cool scale-text-and-graphics feature that allowed the boxes to re-size nicely on the page. I learned a lot doing it, and thought others would find it useful. So, there's no source to share, other than the OG file. It seems I have some options: 1) update it myself, or 2) let others make another (utensil has started one using Typst; it's at https://github.com/utensil/helix-cheat-sheet https://github.com/utensil/helix-cheat-sheet). I always appreciate the work of others to make useful things, and wanted to give something back, no matter how small. Given my other commitments it will take me about a month or so to bring it up to date. stappersg opened an issue in the repo (https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet/issues/1 https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet/issues/1) - Ill post this comment there and ask for feedback.
dcre 11mo ago
Worth mentioning that while this was very nice work by a Helix enthusiast, it was proposed as a replacement for the official docs and mostly rejected, and for good reasons IMO. An instructive discussion! https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/12127#issuecomment-2505469963 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/12127#issuecommen... It's rarely a good idea to do a bunch of work on a big change to an open source project in a direction that has not been validated by the maintainers. Or at least, if you do, do it for your own education and don't have high expectations that it will be merged. The contributor in question had a very good attitude about it.
- alphazard 11mo ago
  > It's rarely a good idea to do a bunch of work on a big change to an open source project in a direction that has not been validated by the maintainers. While this is good advice in general, it doesn't tell the whole story in the case of this specific project. The helix maintainers have a track record of giving very slow "no"s and wasting contributor time. They encourage contributors to fix various odds and ends, until the PR has been nit picked to death, and then finally the concept is rejected. Totally backwards, good project leadership would front-load the conceptual yay-or-nay before reviewing any actual code.
  - deleted 11mo ago
    [deleted]
  - dcre 11mo ago
    I think you have it backwards in two ways: 1. While Helix dev is on the slow side, I think what you’re describing as specific to Helix is in fact the typical case in open source 2. In this case the author did a bunch of work up front and the maintainers said no almost immediately after the PR was posted I agree they could be faster to say no, but I think part of it is that the maintainers would have to agree themselves and as far as I know they are not getting together to come to consensus about random Helix PRs every day.
- user3939382 11mo ago
  Writing good docs is almost impossible, the existing ones weren’t good when I read them so I wouldn’t be so reverent about these norms or whatever. State your contribution as loudly as you want but be prepared to meet the light of reality. Also sometimes the people in charge are too stupid to understand you’re right.
lexoj 11mo ago
I keep trying Helix but just got hit by wq freeze issue, opened since 2022, so I wonder sometimes if its ready. https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2059 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2059
dlivingston 11mo ago
Currently, I'm using VS Code with Vim keybindings (through the Neovim plugin). My workflow (C/C++/Rust) involves multiple panes open, using the lldb debugger, goto/peek definitions, CMake integration w/ active target compilation on Ctrl+Shift+B, clang format on save, LLM-powered tab-autocomplete, and IntelliSense powered by `compile_commands.json`. Is switching to Helix worth it? Can I get more-or-less equivalent functionality with Helix?
- Crowberry 11mo ago
  The debugger in helix was extremely barebones last I tried, LLM integration can only be made available through custom language servers since they do not support plugins yet. If you are interested in making a move to a terminal editor I would instead look to neovim until helix matures a bit more
- suby 11mo ago
  I don't think Helix can currently match the C++ experience you get with VS Code. * Debugging is rough. There's experimental DAP support, but it isn't ready to be used. I was able to set breakpoints and step through the code, but the UI for exploring variables / state while paused felt missing or was unintuitive enough that I couldn't figure it out. I use CLion for debugging. * Goto definition works with clangd as long as your CMake setup outputs compile_commands.json, which you already do. * Renaming symbols (variables / functions) via clangd works fine. * Intellisense is decent, but I had to tweak clangd settings. By default, it would stop returning results after scanning a certain number of symbols, so some valid functions just didn't show up. I was using Helix for a few days before realizing this problem, it isn't obvious that you are getting an artificially constrained filtered view of your symbols via default clangd. Maybe this is a distro packaging issue though? * The order of intellisense completions is not great. CLion is smart about surfacing relevant suggestions first. In Helix + clangd, I often get obscure symbols that obviously have nothing to do with my project or context. It's not the worst thing, but it is mildly annoying and noticeable. * "go to error" doesn't surface errors in files that aren't open. In Helix, space D brings up workspace diagnostics, but it only shows errors for compilation units already open. This appears to be a clangd issue, as space D in other languages will show all project errors. CLion does not suffer from this problem. * I think you can get LLM suggestions via an LSP, but I've not tried personally. Assuming it's true that you can get LLM suggestions, it's not clear to me that you can run two LSP's on the same file, so it might be a choice between clangd and an LLM LSP? Not sure. * No integrated build support. You'll probably end up building from a terminal. I use Wezterm with a custom lua script that is invoked on a hotkey. I put a lot of thought into the build UX, and what I've done is both extremely hacky and still not good enough. Helix is not flexible, it's uncompromising. I like it, but I think it's hard to beat CLion or vscode for C++ development. I'd say right now, if you have a good setup already, stick with what you have.
kemiller 11mo ago
I really would love to move to helix but they can be… stubborn about what gets into the core. And if you start having to go to a plugin (which isn’t even possible last I looked) to get table stakes features in, it kind of defeats the purpose of a modern batteries included modal editor. But it’s still a cool thing I’m glad exists.
- alphazard 11mo ago
  > but they can be… stubborn about what gets into the core. Yes, as an onlooker who is similarly cautious about moving to helix, I consider this to be a major risk factor. I've watched the maintainers waste dozens of hours of contributors' time, and leave the project with no improvement afterwards. I would actively warn against anyone trying to contribute to the project. The maintainers simply don't know how to run an open source project, and it's unlikely you will be able to accomplish anything. It's fine for a project to not accept contributions, and if you don't have the skillset to leverage contributor labor, then it's better to be upfront about it. That being said, I hope they figure out the plugin system, or someone forks the project to add the missing table stakes features.
  - no_wizard 11mo ago
    This is what killed all the momentum that Elm had at one point. While that's a language and not an entire editor, it does serve as an illustrative example of being far too strict about accepting changes to core.
    - alphazard 11mo ago
      For projects without funding, there is typically a trade off between a polished coherent product, which means saying no a lot, and a bloated product that has enough maintainer bandwidth to stay around. The second means saying yes to things which may not make the product better, in order for newcomers to feel bought into the project and want to maintain it. For something like an editor, where whole features can be turned off by default, there's quite a bit of leeway to add bloat and get newcomers to buy in, without actually making the product worse. For a programming language, a feature in the language has to be used by everyone. So the leadership has to say no a lot to keep the language high quality, and that makes it hard to get newcomers to buy in. Unfortunately you can't have it both ways without paying people to maintain the project. Elm was good because the leadership said no...often. It's dead because the leadership said no so often that no one wanted to help maintain it. No one is going to waste their free time working on a project that won't accept their ideas, nor should they. A language like Go doesn't have this trade off. If the Go leadership rejects a google employee's proposed language change, the employee still has to do maintenance chores as directed to keep their job.
zuhsetaqi 11mo ago
Isn’t the built in tutor build to interactively teach exactly what this site contains?
casey2 11mo ago
I'd prefer a more honest tutorial. Who is this editor for? and show the kinds of problems it was designed to solve, nobody makes generalist text editors anymore and nobody needs a generalist editor. Like are you really trying to convince poets to use this? Of course not, this tutorial relies on some domain expert seeing it and mapping the functionality show in the examples to their problem. Also the utility of these kinds of editors goes way down when you aren't doing many quick edits of arbitrary files ( which points to a larger workflow problem though perhaps unavoidable for some )
- backscratches 11mo ago
  Am poet who uses helix!
stared 11mo ago
I guess Helix is made to have appeal for Vim users. At the same time, times change and usually people expect less step learning curve (including myself!). I would really appreciate visible-by-default hints, alike in Linear.app. Then, learning shortcuts becomes organic, rather one need to keep tutorial open, or have a cheatsheet of some sorts.
- CarpeQueso 11mo ago
  For what it's worth, this is actually one of the strong-points of helix. Many of the key-bindings display an unobtrusive list of follow-up actions that close without any lag if you already know what you're looking for. It's worth trying specifically because of how much effort has gone into being easier to pick up and get started with than something like vanilla vim.
hit8run 11mo ago
Many complain here about the helix maintainers pace and PR rejection rate. I embrace it. It’s opinionated software developed in the open and you can fork any time. I prefer this model of strict high quality governance and a “no” as default to keep their vision clear.
- eviks 11mo ago
  Who doesn't like high quality! But in reality many high quality contributions are rejected, so all you're left with is "opinionated" where the opinion doesn't match yours
  - hit8run 11mo ago
    But you can always fork when you have different opinions or write your own thing. SQLite is governed in the same way.
    - eviks 11mo ago
      Of course you can't, that's a common open source fantasy, in reality you wouldn't have enough lifetimes to improve quality and maintain changes in every app you use, that's why defaults/config flexibility/rejection of good ideas/core vs extensions etc. are important and discussed and can't be papered over with a "but fork"
StopDisinfo910 11mo ago
Can someone explain to me the concept being Helix? I never got it. From a casual reading, it looks like vim with no text objects and no support for ed commands so basically vim stripped of two of the main things that makes it good. I understand it wants to be a more rational successor but while I got how sam tried to achieve that by breaking the limit on line editing, making clever use of mouse selections and switching ed for a new non line limited syntax (how I wish ssam had replaced sed), I don’t get the Helix value proposition.
- e12e 11mo ago
  I used vim for about twenty years, and I'm mostly happy having moved from neovim to helix. The main thing I miss in helix is solid debugging support and slime style repl support - but I never had that working in vim. The other thing I'm missing in ruby is "go-to definition" automatically working with dependencies, allowing to go to the source code by "opening" gems - tpope has/had some amazing stuff for ruby development with vim. That said - I like how helix is more discoverable (pop up context menu), has sane/great defaults and out of the box experience - and I like the select-apply or subject-verb and multi cursor workflow better than vim verb-subject flow. I recommend trying to go through the tutorial and see if fits. I'm hoping plugin support will open the door to some improved go-to-definiton support - I'd love to be able to go "up" to edit/view dependencies be that libc source code, java, rust crates etc.
frenzcan 11mo ago
Can any Helix users share how the muscle memory from vim is working out? I’d really like to give it a go but I’m worried I’ll pollute my memory of basic vim commands. I’m bad enough remembering cut/copy/paste keyboard shortcuts in different OS/applications.
- eviks 11mo ago
  > I’m bad enough remembering cut/copy/paste keyboard shortcuts in different OS/applications. Change them to be the same! It's indeed a waste to have a difference for such fundamental keybinds Same with Helix - there is a vim layout out there, no need to use a different set (unless, of course, you can use something better, but then you should also use it in vim)
  - bitcrshr 11mo ago
    There’s also a fork called evil helix that uses more VIM-like bindings: https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix Helix has been my daily driver for a few years now, and it’s extremely familiar if you’re coming from the LazyVim setup for NeoVim. I make a few mistakes here and there if I have to use tools with just basic VI binds, but you learn to juggle them both. The config is very well documented and it would be simple to rebind things too. Hope you give it a shot!
- klooney 11mo ago
  It's mostly worked out cleanly, there's a ton of re-use of vim-isms. Now I just can't use vim anymore.
linsomniac 11mo ago
Does Helix have no way to go back to the last editing position when re-opening a file? Similar to: '" in vim? That is going to be a deal-breaker for me. One reason I use vim over many other options is that I jump in and out of files a lot, having to find my last position in many cases is a chore.
- shorsher 11mo ago
  If you don't have one already, here's an autocmd I use for that https://gist.github.com/shorsher/93b747bf5c4209f45ef0304aa50be986 https://gist.github.com/shorsher/93b747bf5c4209f45ef0304aa50...
- e12e 11mo ago
  Not yet in release branch, afaik https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/401 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/401
  - linsomniac 11mo ago
    The more I think about this, the more I'm leaning towards the opinion: Being able to get back to where you were when you were last editing a file, is table stakes in a programmers editor. But Kakoune and Helix both don't seem to do it (kak has "ga", which just doesn't seem to work on either system I've tried it, both running 2025 versions. So maybe I'm wrong there. But the last thing I want to do when I edit a file is to hunt for the code or bread crumbs of where I was. I really like the direction Helix is leaning in, but it's hard to take it seriously as a code editor if I can't get back to where I was. I guess vim has just spoiled me in that regard.
  - linsomniac 11mo ago
    Thanks for the pointer there. Last night I had Claude Code implement position saving/restore, and I've put it up at: https://github.com/linsomniac/helix-resume https://github.com/linsomniac/helix-resume
- tejohnso 11mo ago
  I gave helix a serious shot for a week, converting shortcuts and adapting to helix's way. In the end I couldn't find any advantage to it over my vim setup. It was not plug and play it was not configuration free, it was not noticeably faster. It was just full of negatives. Little gripes like the one you mention. Vim just seems to do everything better with fewer popups and selection flashes.

205 points by Curiositry 11mo ago

anhner 11mo ago

your descriptions of what the j and k keys do in normal mode are reversed: j moves the cursor one line BELOW and k moves the cursor one line ABOVE.

linsomniac 11mo ago

I keep meaning to get back into Helix, I'm super close to setting up an "vi=hx" alias. I had Claude make me a cheat sheet, but I haven't gone over it, here it is if it helps anyone: https://box.linsomniac.com/HelixCheatSheet.pdf https://box.linsomniac.com/HelixCheatSheet.pdf

hit8run 11mo ago
Your cheatsheet has some hallucinations in there. For example there is no :git command you can do "! git status" etc There is some other integration for git like SPACE + g to see file changes for example
- linsomniac 11mo ago
  Thanks for pointing that out, I'm planning on switching to helix this week and seeing how it goes, and once I do I'll dig deeper into a cheat sheet. There's another comment on this thread that has a cheatsheet that is probably a better place to start, but I had never run across it before: https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet
abuani 11mo ago
Heh, "vi=hx" was exactly how I forced myself to spend a week in helix. Just go for it

cadamsdotcom 11mo ago

Great to see so much Helix content on HN lately. Excited to give it a try!

abuani 11mo ago
It's the first editor since probably sublime text that I've genuinely enjoyed. Useful without any configuration, and very easy to get a productive environment. There's a few rough edges that I'm trying to work through. I've been able to solve my "open in X" like key bindings. But I have yet to get things like "run test for current method". That's probably the biggest pain point I've had so far

shoy 11mo ago

A while ago I made a dense cheat sheet for Helix. It's a touch out of date, but still possibly useful. https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet

hit8run 11mo ago
Hey nice to have you here. I found your cheatsheet and printed it out a while ago :D
- shoy 11mo ago
  I'm glad you liked it. I keep meaning to update it (work and life get in the way), if the demand is there. (edited for grammar)
  - backscratches 11mo ago
    Looking forward to when you might! Also have this on my wall
stefanka 11mo ago
It’s great! How did you do it? I printed it out months ago and wondered how to do one myself
- leobg 11mo ago
  +1
- shoy 11mo ago
  Manually, using Omnigraffle. It's not text-driven like Mermaid or Typst. I made a list of all the commands in the docs, grouped them by similarity and then created tables in Omnigraffle. OG has a very cool scale-text-and-graphics feature that allowed the boxes to re-size nicely on the page. I learned a lot doing it, and thought others would find it useful. So, there's no source to share, other than the OG file. It seems I have some options: 1) update it myself, or 2) let others make another (utensil has started one using Typst; it's at https://github.com/utensil/helix-cheat-sheet https://github.com/utensil/helix-cheat-sheet). I always appreciate the work of others to make useful things, and wanted to give something back, no matter how small. Given my other commitments it will take me about a month or so to bring it up to date. stappersg opened an issue in the repo (https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet/issues/1 https://github.com/stevenhoy/helix-cheat-sheet/issues/1) - Ill post this comment there and ask for feedback.

dcre 11mo ago

Worth mentioning that while this was very nice work by a Helix enthusiast, it was proposed as a replacement for the official docs and mostly rejected, and for good reasons IMO. An instructive discussion! https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/12127#issuecomment-2505469963 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/12127#issuecommen... It's rarely a good idea to do a bunch of work on a big change to an open source project in a direction that has not been validated by the maintainers. Or at least, if you do, do it for your own education and don't have high expectations that it will be merged. The contributor in question had a very good attitude about it.

alphazard 11mo ago
> It's rarely a good idea to do a bunch of work on a big change to an open source project in a direction that has not been validated by the maintainers. While this is good advice in general, it doesn't tell the whole story in the case of this specific project. The helix maintainers have a track record of giving very slow "no"s and wasting contributor time. They encourage contributors to fix various odds and ends, until the PR has been nit picked to death, and then finally the concept is rejected. Totally backwards, good project leadership would front-load the conceptual yay-or-nay before reviewing any actual code.
- deleted 11mo ago
  [deleted]
- dcre 11mo ago
  I think you have it backwards in two ways: 1. While Helix dev is on the slow side, I think what you’re describing as specific to Helix is in fact the typical case in open source 2. In this case the author did a bunch of work up front and the maintainers said no almost immediately after the PR was posted I agree they could be faster to say no, but I think part of it is that the maintainers would have to agree themselves and as far as I know they are not getting together to come to consensus about random Helix PRs every day.
user3939382 11mo ago
Writing good docs is almost impossible, the existing ones weren’t good when I read them so I wouldn’t be so reverent about these norms or whatever. State your contribution as loudly as you want but be prepared to meet the light of reality. Also sometimes the people in charge are too stupid to understand you’re right.

lexoj 11mo ago

I keep trying Helix but just got hit by wq freeze issue, opened since 2022, so I wonder sometimes if its ready. https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2059 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/2059

dlivingston 11mo ago

Currently, I'm using VS Code with Vim keybindings (through the Neovim plugin). My workflow (C/C++/Rust) involves multiple panes open, using the lldb debugger, goto/peek definitions, CMake integration w/ active target compilation on Ctrl+Shift+B, clang format on save, LLM-powered tab-autocomplete, and IntelliSense powered by `compile_commands.json`. Is switching to Helix worth it? Can I get more-or-less equivalent functionality with Helix?

Crowberry 11mo ago
The debugger in helix was extremely barebones last I tried, LLM integration can only be made available through custom language servers since they do not support plugins yet. If you are interested in making a move to a terminal editor I would instead look to neovim until helix matures a bit more
suby 11mo ago
I don't think Helix can currently match the C++ experience you get with VS Code. * Debugging is rough. There's experimental DAP support, but it isn't ready to be used. I was able to set breakpoints and step through the code, but the UI for exploring variables / state while paused felt missing or was unintuitive enough that I couldn't figure it out. I use CLion for debugging. * Goto definition works with clangd as long as your CMake setup outputs compile_commands.json, which you already do. * Renaming symbols (variables / functions) via clangd works fine. * Intellisense is decent, but I had to tweak clangd settings. By default, it would stop returning results after scanning a certain number of symbols, so some valid functions just didn't show up. I was using Helix for a few days before realizing this problem, it isn't obvious that you are getting an artificially constrained filtered view of your symbols via default clangd. Maybe this is a distro packaging issue though? * The order of intellisense completions is not great. CLion is smart about surfacing relevant suggestions first. In Helix + clangd, I often get obscure symbols that obviously have nothing to do with my project or context. It's not the worst thing, but it is mildly annoying and noticeable. * "go to error" doesn't surface errors in files that aren't open. In Helix, space D brings up workspace diagnostics, but it only shows errors for compilation units already open. This appears to be a clangd issue, as space D in other languages will show all project errors. CLion does not suffer from this problem. * I think you can get LLM suggestions via an LSP, but I've not tried personally. Assuming it's true that you can get LLM suggestions, it's not clear to me that you can run two LSP's on the same file, so it might be a choice between clangd and an LLM LSP? Not sure. * No integrated build support. You'll probably end up building from a terminal. I use Wezterm with a custom lua script that is invoked on a hotkey. I put a lot of thought into the build UX, and what I've done is both extremely hacky and still not good enough. Helix is not flexible, it's uncompromising. I like it, but I think it's hard to beat CLion or vscode for C++ development. I'd say right now, if you have a good setup already, stick with what you have.

kemiller 11mo ago

I really would love to move to helix but they can be… stubborn about what gets into the core. And if you start having to go to a plugin (which isn’t even possible last I looked) to get table stakes features in, it kind of defeats the purpose of a modern batteries included modal editor. But it’s still a cool thing I’m glad exists.

alphazard 11mo ago
> but they can be… stubborn about what gets into the core. Yes, as an onlooker who is similarly cautious about moving to helix, I consider this to be a major risk factor. I've watched the maintainers waste dozens of hours of contributors' time, and leave the project with no improvement afterwards. I would actively warn against anyone trying to contribute to the project. The maintainers simply don't know how to run an open source project, and it's unlikely you will be able to accomplish anything. It's fine for a project to not accept contributions, and if you don't have the skillset to leverage contributor labor, then it's better to be upfront about it. That being said, I hope they figure out the plugin system, or someone forks the project to add the missing table stakes features.
- no_wizard 11mo ago
  This is what killed all the momentum that Elm had at one point. While that's a language and not an entire editor, it does serve as an illustrative example of being far too strict about accepting changes to core.
  - alphazard 11mo ago
    For projects without funding, there is typically a trade off between a polished coherent product, which means saying no a lot, and a bloated product that has enough maintainer bandwidth to stay around. The second means saying yes to things which may not make the product better, in order for newcomers to feel bought into the project and want to maintain it. For something like an editor, where whole features can be turned off by default, there's quite a bit of leeway to add bloat and get newcomers to buy in, without actually making the product worse. For a programming language, a feature in the language has to be used by everyone. So the leadership has to say no a lot to keep the language high quality, and that makes it hard to get newcomers to buy in. Unfortunately you can't have it both ways without paying people to maintain the project. Elm was good because the leadership said no...often. It's dead because the leadership said no so often that no one wanted to help maintain it. No one is going to waste their free time working on a project that won't accept their ideas, nor should they. A language like Go doesn't have this trade off. If the Go leadership rejects a google employee's proposed language change, the employee still has to do maintenance chores as directed to keep their job.

zuhsetaqi 11mo ago

Isn’t the built in tutor build to interactively teach exactly what this site contains?

casey2 11mo ago

I'd prefer a more honest tutorial. Who is this editor for? and show the kinds of problems it was designed to solve, nobody makes generalist text editors anymore and nobody needs a generalist editor. Like are you really trying to convince poets to use this? Of course not, this tutorial relies on some domain expert seeing it and mapping the functionality show in the examples to their problem. Also the utility of these kinds of editors goes way down when you aren't doing many quick edits of arbitrary files ( which points to a larger workflow problem though perhaps unavoidable for some )

backscratches 11mo ago
Am poet who uses helix!

stared 11mo ago

I guess Helix is made to have appeal for Vim users. At the same time, times change and usually people expect less step learning curve (including myself!). I would really appreciate visible-by-default hints, alike in Linear.app. Then, learning shortcuts becomes organic, rather one need to keep tutorial open, or have a cheatsheet of some sorts.

CarpeQueso 11mo ago
For what it's worth, this is actually one of the strong-points of helix. Many of the key-bindings display an unobtrusive list of follow-up actions that close without any lag if you already know what you're looking for. It's worth trying specifically because of how much effort has gone into being easier to pick up and get started with than something like vanilla vim.

hit8run 11mo ago

Many complain here about the helix maintainers pace and PR rejection rate. I embrace it. It’s opinionated software developed in the open and you can fork any time. I prefer this model of strict high quality governance and a “no” as default to keep their vision clear.

eviks 11mo ago
Who doesn't like high quality! But in reality many high quality contributions are rejected, so all you're left with is "opinionated" where the opinion doesn't match yours
- hit8run 11mo ago
  But you can always fork when you have different opinions or write your own thing. SQLite is governed in the same way.
  - eviks 11mo ago
    Of course you can't, that's a common open source fantasy, in reality you wouldn't have enough lifetimes to improve quality and maintain changes in every app you use, that's why defaults/config flexibility/rejection of good ideas/core vs extensions etc. are important and discussed and can't be papered over with a "but fork"

StopDisinfo910 11mo ago

Can someone explain to me the concept being Helix? I never got it. From a casual reading, it looks like vim with no text objects and no support for ed commands so basically vim stripped of two of the main things that makes it good. I understand it wants to be a more rational successor but while I got how sam tried to achieve that by breaking the limit on line editing, making clever use of mouse selections and switching ed for a new non line limited syntax (how I wish ssam had replaced sed), I don’t get the Helix value proposition.

e12e 11mo ago
I used vim for about twenty years, and I'm mostly happy having moved from neovim to helix. The main thing I miss in helix is solid debugging support and slime style repl support - but I never had that working in vim. The other thing I'm missing in ruby is "go-to definition" automatically working with dependencies, allowing to go to the source code by "opening" gems - tpope has/had some amazing stuff for ruby development with vim. That said - I like how helix is more discoverable (pop up context menu), has sane/great defaults and out of the box experience - and I like the select-apply or subject-verb and multi cursor workflow better than vim verb-subject flow. I recommend trying to go through the tutorial and see if fits. I'm hoping plugin support will open the door to some improved go-to-definiton support - I'd love to be able to go "up" to edit/view dependencies be that libc source code, java, rust crates etc.

frenzcan 11mo ago

Can any Helix users share how the muscle memory from vim is working out? I’d really like to give it a go but I’m worried I’ll pollute my memory of basic vim commands. I’m bad enough remembering cut/copy/paste keyboard shortcuts in different OS/applications.

eviks 11mo ago
> I’m bad enough remembering cut/copy/paste keyboard shortcuts in different OS/applications. Change them to be the same! It's indeed a waste to have a difference for such fundamental keybinds Same with Helix - there is a vim layout out there, no need to use a different set (unless, of course, you can use something better, but then you should also use it in vim)
- bitcrshr 11mo ago
  There’s also a fork called evil helix that uses more VIM-like bindings: https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix https://github.com/usagi-flow/evil-helix Helix has been my daily driver for a few years now, and it’s extremely familiar if you’re coming from the LazyVim setup for NeoVim. I make a few mistakes here and there if I have to use tools with just basic VI binds, but you learn to juggle them both. The config is very well documented and it would be simple to rebind things too. Hope you give it a shot!
klooney 11mo ago
It's mostly worked out cleanly, there's a ton of re-use of vim-isms. Now I just can't use vim anymore.

linsomniac 11mo ago

Does Helix have no way to go back to the last editing position when re-opening a file? Similar to: '" in vim? That is going to be a deal-breaker for me. One reason I use vim over many other options is that I jump in and out of files a lot, having to find my last position in many cases is a chore.

shorsher 11mo ago
If you don't have one already, here's an autocmd I use for that https://gist.github.com/shorsher/93b747bf5c4209f45ef0304aa50be986 https://gist.github.com/shorsher/93b747bf5c4209f45ef0304aa50...
e12e 11mo ago
Not yet in release branch, afaik https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/401 https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/401
- linsomniac 11mo ago
  The more I think about this, the more I'm leaning towards the opinion: Being able to get back to where you were when you were last editing a file, is table stakes in a programmers editor. But Kakoune and Helix both don't seem to do it (kak has "ga", which just doesn't seem to work on either system I've tried it, both running 2025 versions. So maybe I'm wrong there. But the last thing I want to do when I edit a file is to hunt for the code or bread crumbs of where I was. I really like the direction Helix is leaning in, but it's hard to take it seriously as a code editor if I can't get back to where I was. I guess vim has just spoiled me in that regard.
- linsomniac 11mo ago
  Thanks for the pointer there. Last night I had Claude Code implement position saving/restore, and I've put it up at: https://github.com/linsomniac/helix-resume https://github.com/linsomniac/helix-resume
tejohnso 11mo ago
I gave helix a serious shot for a week, converting shortcuts and adapting to helix's way. In the end I couldn't find any advantage to it over my vim setup. It was not plug and play it was not configuration free, it was not noticeably faster. It was just full of negatives. Little gripes like the one you mention. Vim just seems to do everything better with fewer popups and selection flashes.