This is my article about Helix - a post-modern editor.
Reference:
Built-in with Rust.
Yes, Helix is an open source written by Rust, no Electron, no Javascript. You can use it tmux, plain any terminal. My combo iTerm2 + tmux - very good :), save for battery life and still have a good performance.
The Begin.
If you use vim or neovim, you will have a little surprise with Helix. Helix follows the selection -> action model. This means that whatever you are going to act on: a word, a line, etc is selected first and after action on it (delete, yank, change, etc).
You still move with j, k, l, h as Vim. But when use w, b or e, you will see a cursor select your word.
Some cheatsheet:
| Action | Helix | Vim |
|---|---|---|
| Delete a word | wd |
dw |
| Delete a character | d |
x |
| Select a line | x |
Shift + v |
| Go to the first file | gg |
gg |
| Go to end file | ge |
Shift + g |
| Go to end line | gl |
$ |
| Go to first line | gh |
0 |
And you can use shell command in helix:
More information: use tutor
Easy to config
If vim uses .vimrc to config for vim, helix uses config.toml to configure editor. This is official documents
It is easy to config, I show my current config.
theme = "gruvbox"
[editor]
line-number = "relative"
mouse = true
[editor.cursor-shape]
insert = "bar"
normal = "block"
select = "underline"
[editor.whitespace.render]
space = "none"
tab = "all"
newline = "none"
[editor.whitespace.characters]
space = "·"
tab = "╎"
Props and Cons
-
Props:
- Config with file
- LSP integration
- Fuzzy file in the project
- Debugging (experimental)
-
Cons:
- Not File explorer.
- Some LSP need a manual config (JSX, TSX).
- Not support plugin.
- Status-bar is simple.
- A lot of issues are pending.
Anyway, helix is developing, and we can hope many contributor help to improve.
Top comments (2)
I tried Helix, but couldn't find a way to config Eslint and Prettier to work with my .eslintrc and .prettierrc... It just works with its own config :(