140 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
140 lines
4.4 KiB
Plaintext
[1]Skip to content[2]
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• [3]Blog
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• [4]About
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• [5]More
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1. [6]Index
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2. [7]Blog
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3. [8]My thoughts on Helix after 6 months
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[9][10](Photo)[11]tim@harek.no[12]PGP key
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My thoughts on Helix after 6 months
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Published June 19, 2023
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2 minutes read
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Back in [13]January I decided to try out Helix as my primary editor and today I
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have almost been using it for 6 months and these are my thoughts.
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What I like
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Keystrokes
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Helix lives in the opposite land when it comes to keystrokes in comparison to
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Vim, and it was only difficult for the first couple of days. I've become fond
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of the way to navigate around.
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Minor modes
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I really like that there are more modes, called [14]"Minor modes", and the
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reason why I like them are that whenever I initate a mode there is a subtle
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pop-up in the lower-right corner with the available actions with the activated
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mode. This is super helpful when you are first learning Helix and when you are
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doing something you don't do on a regular basis. It lowers the chance of having
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to switch context in order to do something. For instance, I know that m
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activates "Match mode", but sometimes I may forget how to select around
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specific selector like (), but with Helix I will have a little helper that
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tells me that the next key is a and then the next helper will help me select
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just ().
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Moving around
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I've become really fond of the idea that every move-action is also a selection/
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highlight, I find that I miss that feature whenever I edit server-configs via
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SSH or somewhere else when I'm not in Helix. It feels natural after a while
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because you get used to moving around text/code with w and e.
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Configuration
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No more Vimscript and Lua, just plaintext TOML! The documentation for how to
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configure the editor is great and most of the defaults are also great! My
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editor-config is just 23 lines in contrast to my Neovim-config which is 209
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lines long.
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Language server protocol (LSP) support
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I had some experience with this from Neovim, but it felt cumbersome having to
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configure everything. With Helix I can simply run hx --health markdown and see
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what LSP is required for Markdown.
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$ hx --health markdown
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Configured language server: marksman
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Binary for language server: /opt/homebrew/bin/marksman
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Configured debug adapter: None
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Highlight queries: ✓
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Textobject queries: ✘
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Indent queries: ✘
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I even managed to get it working with Deno thanks to its documentation on how
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to use custom LSPs for specific languages.
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What I don't like
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There really isn't anything in particualr that I don't like about Helix. I
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really miss having it installed on servers by default, but I completely
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understand that that is a big ask 😅 It's not too difficult to swap between
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Vim-bindings and Helix-bindings for short sessions.
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Conclusion
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Helix is fun and easy! I highly recommend Helix if you:
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• want to try a new editor,
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• tired of configuring {Neo}vim with Vimscript/Lua,
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• or been thinking about trying out Vim, but been hesitant because of the
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modes.
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I will continue to use Helix for the forseeable future, I'm looking forward to
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what future updates will bring!
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Remember to check out Helix's tutor, hx --tutor for quick introduction to its
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keystrokes and interactions.
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Tagged with
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• [15]#100-days-to-offload
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• [16]#helix
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• [17]#software
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• [18]#thoughts
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• [19]#tools
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516 words
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[20]Reply via email
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Last deploy: 2024-01-10
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• [21]Stats
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• [22]Privacy
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• [23]Connect
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• [24]Subscribe
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References:
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[1] https://timharek.no/blog/my-thoughts-on-helix-after-6-months#main
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[2] https://timharek.no/
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[3] https://timharek.no/blog
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[4] https://timharek.no/about
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[5] https://timharek.no/more
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[6] https://timharek.no/
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[7] https://timharek.no/blog
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[8] https://timharek.no/blog/my-thoughts-on-helix-after-6-months
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[9] https://timharek.no/
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[10] https://timharek.no/.well-known/avatar?size=250&quality=90
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[11] mailto:tim@harek.no
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[12] https://timharek.no/public-key.asc
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[13] https://timharek.no/blog/trying-helix
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[14] https://docs.helix-editor.com/keymap.html#normal-mode
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[15] https://timharek.no/tags/100-days-to-offload
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[16] https://timharek.no/tags/helix
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[17] https://timharek.no/tags/software
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[18] https://timharek.no/tags/thoughts
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[19] https://timharek.no/tags/tools
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[20] mailto:tim@harek.no?subject=RE:%20My%20thoughts%20on%20Helix%20after%206%20months
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[21] https://timharek.no/stats
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[22] https://timharek.no/privacy
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[23] https://timharek.no/connect
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[24] https://timharek.no/subscribe
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