Helix Text Editor: A Review
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- Опубліковано 17 чер 2024
- Can Vim and Neovim be dethroned by this new modal text editor written in Rust?
I review Helix's features: tree-sitter, LSP, color schemes, etc. I also tell you about the pain points and caveats.
Helix runs on Linux, Windows and MacOS.
Timestamps:
00:00 Introduction
00:25 Features
04:14 On Helix's design
05:23 Selection-action model
06:05 Pros & cons of selection-action
08:01 Configuration
10:52 Plugin Support
11:25 Recap: pros & cons
12:47 Can Helix dethrone Neovim? - Наука та технологія
For newcomers to modal editing such as myself I can see them choosing helix over neovim any day of the week. It is just simply a better experience
Exactly 😂 sheesh. The goal was never to convert zealots, if you’re happy with vim what in the world are you doing even commenting?
Half these people use GUi editors anyways lmao i just know this to be true.
The only thing missing are plugins. There is always something the editor won’t support, so I hope they find a great way for people to add functionalities.
For most neovim users the most important aspect is flexibility and being lightweight without any bloatware pre-installed. Neovim gained popularity exactly because it does NOT have anything pre-installed but instead it lets you pick and choose your plugin, so you can make it the way you want it to be. Personally I find it nice to have built-in color schemes, code highlighting and LSP support, that is why I use NvChad, but for many Vim/Neovim users this is a big no-no, as built-in color schemes and LSP is considered bloatware. That is why I think Helix won't replace Neovim anytime soon or ever, but instead Helix will find it's own fans that prefer an "out-of-the-box Neovim" experience.
Well said
NVChad will take that market. Don’t see helix going anywhere - mainly because of selection-action bullshit
NVChad is good. is really fast and work out of the box...
Helix has the advantage of being by far not as difficult to learn. NvChad, Astrovim, ect are all way harder to use and less intuitive. I also think NeoVim is one of these most bloated editors, you probably run 15+ different plugins.
@@MrPrabhatRastogi the only complaint against selection-action is that it isn't vim which is kinda unfair. if vim was selection-action to begin with people would be complaining about action-selection today.
The "sticking things together with a duct tape" part is so relatable XD hahahha
Basically, it's nice if the designers anticipated your particular needs. If not, better wait for those plugins.
Correct, but with the addition that, for a lot of people, Helix features are enough for their needs.
@@diego_sandoval Yeah understood. The thing that jumped out to me was that it only has syntax highlighting for a lot of less popular languages, including one that I use regularly (clojure).
@@misterdrgn5155 It uses the same tech for completion and all as Nvim, so that should be a big problem.
Helix is a more pragmatic implementation of Kakoune editing model. Besides object-verb/verb-object, one of the major insights of Kakoune was that visual mode should be the default and that the cursor is just a 1 char selection. When entering insert or append mode you prepend or append to one or more selections of arbitrary sizes. Instead of collapsing the selection to 1 char to enter insert with "i", just enter append with "a".
I have been using helix from almost a year, its only after having watched this review did I realize we can toggle options in ':" command mode using tab , I have been typing texts all this time! Wonderful Review btw.
Thank you!
The selection-action model is actually so smart. Very often what I do in neovim and I see others doing this as well is instead of let's say "dw", I do "vwd", because that way I see my selection. Okay maybe in such a simple case I still just do "dw" but anything more complex I do visual mode. It'll take getting used to a new paradigm but this just seems like such a good idea. And my neovim config is actually not very complicated at all, so it might be possible for me to fully switch to helix already. Super hyped about this now
Yeah, in fact it's so intuitive that kickstart vim even added highlight yanked text function which shows what was yanked.
It shows it is useful to see selection before you do an action. Even kickstart vim understand it. Kak and hx got it right.
That’s true for new folks. Any one who has used vim long enough avoids “visual” mode where possible. It’s just inefficient.
you can use `a` to insert after the selection instead of `i` that inserts at the start of selection
Yeah, you will always do either 'bi' or 'ea' to type before/after a word. I can't imagine the situation from the video happening where you would want to insert before the last character of a word
@@filiprechtorik4938 'whi' would work quite well for the example given.
Helix is now my favorite editor. It didn't take much to get started and the menus help you when you haven't yet learned a key shortcut. I think the blend of vim + kakoune plus helix additions is very well thought out and intuitive. I love the power and speed it brings. My proficiency improves considerably every day.
I've always thought that vi's "Visual-block mode" did like 90% of what "multiple cursors" does. Good enough for me.
I played with Helix for a weekend. I LOVED it when playing in Rust code. Trying to set it up with a Go LSP proved to be too frustrating so I went back to my comvie nvim. Here's to hoping they get a Mason like plugin going soon!
The trouble with go configuration is often attributed to either sharing your go install with your go project location which is a problem. Otherwise a reinstall of helix works pretty well most of the time
Most people dont use the full potential of vim for two reasons: high learning curve and the time spent in a config that fit your needs. I tried Helix and I found so easy to use, the select first approach is perfect because now I can see in advance what will happen after a certain command, I see so many experienced vim users caught by surprise after some command, it requires a depth knowledge in vim to predict excatly what will happen after some more complex command and most of the time people just want to write code, that's why most developers get so good and fast using vscode shortcuts, even if those shorcuts are not better than those in vim, because they are just there, no configuration needed.
You touch a good point. I hope I get fully used to the selection model like you, because I like the overall philosophy of the editor.
Because of you video I'm trying Helix today, just loving it, it's exactly what I always wanted, the power of efficient shortcuts similar to vim but with some functionalities already built in, just a little configuration for trivial things. Neovim tried this with those project like NvChad and LunarVim, has already mentioned in the comments, but even those project go into so many built in functionalities that most people don't want. But the real problem is, even though those projects are ready to use after install sometimes it's pretty hard to add extra configurations into them, in other words: we are back to square one.
@@gatogordo4131 I'm glad you found Helix and liked it thanks to my video.
@@gatogordo4131 yeah I couldnt find out how to extend nvChad (I know it's possible just didnt seem obvious)
Thank you for this good review. It helped me.
Glad to hear it.
very well done video! Cheers
Thank you!
I'll add that it comes with fuzzy file name search and global text search out of the box. I think this is a great plus.
If you talk about setup vim, there are projects like NvChad or LunarVim that make the process easier. It's true that the config files in Vim are so hard to read and I agree with you when you say that installing plugins it's like duck taping stuff. I like Helix, but it's more about potential, not a really competitor, by now. We will see. Good vid! ❤
Thank you
I thought about mentioning NvChad and comparing it to Helix, but then the video would have been even longer, and I would still be recording it.
Lua as a configuration language for neovim is amazing, and its kind of a shame that you didnt menttion it. It basically removes your point of the .toml files being an improvment. Ductaping plugins I do agree with you to some extent, but usually plugins look the same anyways. For example, harpoon looks the same as telescope and it functions in the same way as well with the popup screen.
I have these two mappings for i and a so that I don't have to think about the selection when I want to enter insert mode and only think about where the cursor is
[keys.normal]
i = ["collapse_selection", "insert_mode"]
a = ["move_char_right", "collapse_selection", "insert_mode"]
very good video, thx!!!!!!!!
My biggest missing feature is auto suggestion of configuration blocks and values. I don't like having to side by side doc parse to configure helix, just give us a lightweight lsp and it would be much easier
In vim you can also do v w d to delete
After trying NeoVim, LunarVim and Kickstart nvim, it felt like trying to add something new is either unintuitive (distros) or tedious (vanilla or Kickstart)
Installing Helix after a week or two of NeoVim felt like sich a relief - out-of-the-box experience is great and it has a bit more comfortable gestures and commands
Configuration can also go deep enough for me - personal snippets, made my own theme inheriting from another one, etc.
Helix is great and I love it and I might learn rust to dinally add a good git integration 😅
not sure about neovim killer, but Helix is a damn fine editor. I use it almost exclusively.
I switched to Helix over a year ago and haven’t looked back, but it’s not a Neovim replacement. It’s just Vim for minimalists.
VIM user: "I don't want bloat."
Also VIM users: "I'm going to install this opinionated VIM flavor that requires installing 27 modules, language, compilers, managers, interpreters, and tools just to run."
Look at Chad/Lunar/Astro/etc.
A lot of people start with vscode vim modes before going full vim, so I think a good vscode helix mode would help them a lot. also they could just support vim keybindings
Una pregunta, tus dotfiles? me gusta bastante el estilo de tus videos y quiero recrear tu waybar pero veo que actualizaste cosas pequenas desde el video de waybar al de wofi
Me alegro de que te gusten los videos. La versión más reciente de mis dotfiles está en github.com/sandov/sway-configs-2023
No recuerdo exactamente si existe alguna diferencia pequeña entre estos dotfiles y los que usé en el video de wofi, pero son los dotfiles más recientes que tengo, así que deberían ser casi iguales a los del video.
@@diego_sandoval thx!
it doesnt have plugin support but its Rust and has a great model for adding features. plugins could just be optional features on the crate IMO.
Nice
One thing I notice about Helix: it's snappy. Take example on nvim telescope vs helix whatever-pop-up window.
Just like Sublime snappy editor to VSCode rich editor, I think Helix is the Sublime version of NeoVim.
This is what I noticed about it as well. "Snappy" is a good way to describe it. VSCode is very laggy to me. I'm kinda OCD with the latency, most people probably wouldn't notice it but it actually drives me mad.
I wouldn't call it snappy. It's unusable on large xml files ime.
The default config shows changes as you type so tye moment you start to do vims equivalent of :%s/foo.*/bar - helix wants to show preview by default. it starts to process 500mb file again and again and again on every stroke. This is not fast. And when there are many cursors it becomes very slow, unlike default vim/nvim
(plugin infested vims is also laggy, but I keep pure vim for this exact case and keep bloat to nvim)
Nice video, thanks. The indentation is language dependent so why a global setting? It’s like the comment separator some uses # and other //.
Some of us use the same indentation for most (or all) languages. Additionally, setting a global setting is easier than defining a language-dependent config.
The Helix process (selection:action) is intuitive. After a few plays in Helix my Neovim flow is scrambled. I like the themes in Helix - themes in Neovim are 1. poor 2. then when you find a decent theme you have to fuss about compatibility 3. The lualine then needs changing 4. Actually road-testing Neovim themes in the first place is not even possible as far as I can see.....so I'll give Helix a run for its money thanks. You can also have different themes in root & user, which is an added bonus, as certain themes play better with certain file types
Agree on almost everything you said.
@@diego_sandoval Except? My Helix themes are pukka, my Kitty theme is fantastic....all the Neovim themes I've ever seen are garish, too busy & noisy, basically over-engineered [except that no-one seems capable of creating a lualine that changes colour in a distinctive and signal way] (imho). You can set the statusline in Helix quite easily; only "select" & "insert" modes are displayed in colour, which is a simple but huge advance
@@TheMotorcycleBoy-pe2eg Except that I'm still not 100% convinced if the selection-action model is more intuitive, or better than action-selection.
@@diego_sandoval The wonderful thing about Open Source is that you find what suits you, and then micro manage it. Maybe one day I'll spend a month writing a Neovim config, all the while dreading which eye-candy wrapper I am going to throw on it. In the meanwhile I'll go with Helix and Varua, and - for now - less headache.
Thanks! I love there is someone talking about my favorite editor. I am trying to get used to it now.
For language settings, to be fair, most things are not directly handled by the editor. Those options are mainly concerned with LSP, and what helix does is just to run a specified LSP command with the options given in language.toml when you open up a format. It is normal for LSP.
From my experience, each LSP has a different option scheme, which makes it impossible to build a universal interface across them. In vscode, LSP servers come bundled with a dedicated extension that mitigates a setting nuisance, for helix, however, it is up to the user who has to put together every option he needs.
An unexpected benefit of it is that you can set up any formatter and LSP you want. As I said, all helix does is to run a child process with a given command, so I was able to switch my javascript LSP to deno with some deno-specific options
Although the documents on it are in a poor state, you can copy-paste a boilerplate from helix source code..
And, personally I have never seen a vim user who does not use plug-ins. I am skeptical of Nevoim's advantage for its barebone structure. Plug-in and a scripting language in vim settings that I was too lazy to understand were the driving factors that pushed me away to land on Helix. I still don't know how to write a plugin that makes a child process and does interprocess communication for such as lsp lol
I admittedly didn't watch the whole video, but I jumped around a bit, so I'm not sure if you mentioned the ubiquity of vim. If you learn neovim, you get the added benefit of knowing vi - which is installed by default basically everywhere. Not something you can say about helix. If the choice is to learn one or the other, you might get more benefit from learning the neovim motions. Granted it looks like helix is compatible with basically all systems but you'd need to install it yourself.
That's a good point.
coming from VSCode, neovim was a half failure (configuration, lot of distros, ecc). Helix instead was immedietely comfortable. I miss some integration with github (but solved with lazygit) and AI
Idk i rather configure my neovim setup from 0 and control everything the way i like, also if you really want a complete IDE there's things like LazyVim that comes with all that Helix has and more out of the box.
its easy to jump from vim, nvim or lvim to helix.
BTW, I use VSCode.
1:41 No, you don't - there is block in which will let you insert, remove, and replace on multiple lines.
You're right. That was an oversight on my part. Visual block mode allows you to edit multiple lines at the same time. (however, it only shows the cursor on one line, and the edited text appears on the other lines only after completing the action AFAIK).
Now that would be aesthetics, @@diego_sandoval
i loved helix too but it would be nice if it has a copilot support
And here where lack of plugin support shines. Copilot and ai coprogramming is a new toy. There are dozens of extensions for vscode - copilot, replit, local models. Same for vim. Pick your poison or make one yourself. In helix you are bound to whatever devs decide.
"in vim, you'd have to install plugins to get multiple cursors" - I'm so mad at this because a surface level feature, ctrl+v, literally does what you did there
I love how many themes it comes with and I was almost sold on that alone, but I can't get them to persist.
I made a config file, a themes folder and a copied a user-submitted theme file and I think I followed the instructions correctly, but it's always the purple theme when I load the program.
You should add a line in your config.toml, that defines the theme, for example:
theme = "autumn_night"
There are two types of people.
For some, who like things as per their own customization, complain about bloatware, and
For some, who like all/most of the things already available to them in an editor, complain about simplicity and customization.
Don't fall into the trap when one criticizes the other.
Helix may be bloated by providing many things OOTB, but to answer your question -- Helix will never replace Neovim ? And neither Neovim, Helix, because the people who like things their own way will keep using Neovim and the people who want a terminal editor with batteries included, will keep using Helix / Nvim distros.
Helix is not vimchad, lazyvim, or other preconfigured neovim? What is the purpose of helix? I must admit I prefer the vim community approach also known as neovim. It took me 2 months to move from vim( user since 1992 ) to neovim( since 2023. )
Helix is faster, better codebase, easier, and more intuitive. It's just a dam good and fast tui editor that's easy to use and learn.
@@dekaaizer2550 Until there is Rust ABI stability there will be no plug-ins.
Helix appeals to people who don't like Vim's way of doing things and plugin system. The question is kind of stupid. What's the point of doing anything different, right? People like different things. Also, a Rust ABI is not necessary and there is already an open PR for the Lisp-based plugin system (which can also import C ABI dylibs)
tmux+neovim VS zellij+helix
So it can do most things Neovim can do, but also has the bloat and inflexibility of a GUI?
Helix has no chance of replacing nvim, vscode or emacs. These three editors have 1 major common advantage. Plug-ins.
not only just their existence, but design.
nvim, vscode, emacs - all three were designed with heavy extensions in mind. This is why in fact nvim took over major user base of vim users. Lua is just better than vim languages.
helix was not designed with extensions in mind. It is on roadmap, but they will be the second class citizens as they will be glued on existing code. Other editors thought about them from the get go.
Nobody cares about duct tapes feeling.
People care about getting stuff done.
I easily integrated local ai as poor man copilot into vscode in couple of weekends. Doing it with helix would require either faking lsp, or running everything through pipe or changing core source code.
I'm still confuse on themes.
After launching the editor, without doing anything else you type a colon character (:), that will open a menu below, then you type the word theme and then a space, and then you use the Tab key to iterate through the themes. Then you press Enter when you find the one you like.
I haven't use helix editor (it seems like it's a good editor) but your pros for it sound so lame. Built-in color themes? Really?
A bad default color theme can be a deal breaker for a lot of people.
By having color themes built in, you spare the user from 25 minutes of browsing Github and installing themes manually when they're trying the editor out for the first time.
Having a lot of themes to immediately try out without having go into github is a great feature.
@@diego_sandoval Fair point. But in general I don't think it's a good approach to advertise helix as "vim killer". It will be better to use more polite presentation, something like ''here is an interesting modal editor with sane defaults, give it a shot''.
Helix will not be on all distros like vi so I think that is a big no no for most people
Bro showcases the colorscheme first...
Flashy visuals = viewer retention :^)
Helix editor is really great, but alas, unless it have actual vi mode there's no way I can use it.
If it had a Vi mode it would be Vi.
@@HeySeeri VsCode have vi mode. Kate have vi. Literally all editor with plugins have vi mode. Are they all vi?
@@5fr4ewq Isn't Helix much more similar to Vi out of the box than VS Code with vi mode? Which vi feature is missing from Helix out of the box but present in VSCode?
It will never support Vi(m) bindings. Why? Just use Vim/Neovim at that point. You said it yourself with how almost all editors support it via plugins (except projects reinventing Vim but with GUI, like Zed).
@@ezioauditore7636 What does that comment even mean?
The only way i see helix working is by adding vim mode.
You are a dummy
Same crap with modes, switching between normal, insert, visual modes sucks. That's why VSCode became more popular, you don't have to remember the current mode just type and be happy.
In vscode you have to remember all the different Ctrl+alt+shift+whatever key combos to use it effectively. To know what mode I am in I just have to look at my cursor.
multiple cursors is so gay