timharek-no-ah7ilz.txt (4463B)
1 [1]Skip to content[2] 2 3 • [3]Blog 4 • [4]About 5 • [5]More 6 7 1. [6]Index 8 2. [7]Blog 9 3. [8]My thoughts on Helix after 6 months 10 11 [9][10](Photo)[11][email protected][12]PGP key 12 13 My thoughts on Helix after 6 months 14 15 Published June 19, 2023 16 2 minutes read 17 18 Back in [13]January I decided to try out Helix as my primary editor and today I 19 have almost been using it for 6 months and these are my thoughts. 20 21 What I like 22 23 Keystrokes 24 25 Helix lives in the opposite land when it comes to keystrokes in comparison to 26 Vim, and it was only difficult for the first couple of days. I've become fond 27 of the way to navigate around. 28 29 Minor modes 30 31 I really like that there are more modes, called [14]"Minor modes", and the 32 reason why I like them are that whenever I initate a mode there is a subtle 33 pop-up in the lower-right corner with the available actions with the activated 34 mode. This is super helpful when you are first learning Helix and when you are 35 doing something you don't do on a regular basis. It lowers the chance of having 36 to switch context in order to do something. For instance, I know that m 37 activates "Match mode", but sometimes I may forget how to select around 38 specific selector like (), but with Helix I will have a little helper that 39 tells me that the next key is a and then the next helper will help me select 40 just (). 41 42 Moving around 43 44 I've become really fond of the idea that every move-action is also a selection/ 45 highlight, I find that I miss that feature whenever I edit server-configs via 46 SSH or somewhere else when I'm not in Helix. It feels natural after a while 47 because you get used to moving around text/code with w and e. 48 49 Configuration 50 51 No more Vimscript and Lua, just plaintext TOML! The documentation for how to 52 configure the editor is great and most of the defaults are also great! My 53 editor-config is just 23 lines in contrast to my Neovim-config which is 209 54 lines long. 55 56 Language server protocol (LSP) support 57 58 I had some experience with this from Neovim, but it felt cumbersome having to 59 configure everything. With Helix I can simply run hx --health markdown and see 60 what LSP is required for Markdown. 61 62 $ hx --health markdown 63 Configured language server: marksman 64 Binary for language server: /opt/homebrew/bin/marksman 65 Configured debug adapter: None 66 Highlight queries: ✓ 67 Textobject queries: ✘ 68 Indent queries: ✘ 69 70 I even managed to get it working with Deno thanks to its documentation on how 71 to use custom LSPs for specific languages. 72 73 What I don't like 74 75 There really isn't anything in particualr that I don't like about Helix. I 76 really miss having it installed on servers by default, but I completely 77 understand that that is a big ask 😅 It's not too difficult to swap between 78 Vim-bindings and Helix-bindings for short sessions. 79 80 Conclusion 81 82 Helix is fun and easy! I highly recommend Helix if you: 83 84 • want to try a new editor, 85 • tired of configuring {Neo}vim with Vimscript/Lua, 86 • or been thinking about trying out Vim, but been hesitant because of the 87 modes. 88 89 I will continue to use Helix for the forseeable future, I'm looking forward to 90 what future updates will bring! 91 92 Remember to check out Helix's tutor, hx --tutor for quick introduction to its 93 keystrokes and interactions. 94 95 Tagged with 96 97 • [15]#100-days-to-offload 98 • [16]#helix 99 • [17]#software 100 • [18]#thoughts 101 • [19]#tools 102 103 516 words 104 105 [20]Reply via email 106 Last deploy: 2024-01-10 107 108 • [21]Stats 109 • [22]Privacy 110 • [23]Connect 111 • [24]Subscribe 112 113 114 References: 115 116 [1] https://timharek.no/blog/my-thoughts-on-helix-after-6-months#main 117 [2] https://timharek.no/ 118 [3] https://timharek.no/blog 119 [4] https://timharek.no/about 120 [5] https://timharek.no/more 121 [6] https://timharek.no/ 122 [7] https://timharek.no/blog 123 [8] https://timharek.no/blog/my-thoughts-on-helix-after-6-months 124 [9] https://timharek.no/ 125 [10] https://timharek.no/.well-known/avatar?size=250&quality=90 126 [11] mailto:[email protected] 127 [12] https://timharek.no/public-key.asc 128 [13] https://timharek.no/blog/trying-helix 129 [14] https://docs.helix-editor.com/keymap.html#normal-mode 130 [15] https://timharek.no/tags/100-days-to-offload 131 [16] https://timharek.no/tags/helix 132 [17] https://timharek.no/tags/software 133 [18] https://timharek.no/tags/thoughts 134 [19] https://timharek.no/tags/tools 135 [20] mailto:[email protected]?subject=RE:%20My%20thoughts%20on%20Helix%20after%206%20months 136 [21] https://timharek.no/stats 137 [22] https://timharek.no/privacy 138 [23] https://timharek.no/connect 139 [24] https://timharek.no/subscribe