A mapping to open Markdown-formatted URL (like Vim's gx)

[aiman]

I wanted to share a shortcut to emulate Vim's gx mapping.

In Helix, the quickest way I found to open the link of a Markdown-formatted URL is to move the cursor inside the parentheses (the URL part) and then press these sequences:

• mim
• gf

But in Vim, it's a single key sequence gx, provided as part of Vim's Netrw system. Due to its speed, convenience, and muscle memory, I wanted to emulate this in Helix. But it is not possible to map keys to key sequences.

However, I found another way to emulate gx in Helix:

[keys.normal.g]
x = ["match_brackets", "match_brackets", "move_char_right", "select_mode", "match_brackets", "extend_char_left", "goto_file"]

It is worth pointing out this isn't as powerful as Vim's gx, because the latter is a generic URL-opener, whereas the mapping above only works inside Markdown parentheses.

Another thing I tried is to use my terminal's link opening facility, but this doesn't work when the URLs is wrapped due to the gutter breaking up the URL with a gap.

[hoichi]

FWIW, as of Helix 24.7, gf works without mim, at lest for non-wrapped urls.

[aiman]

Thanks for the heads up! You're right, gf "just works" now for most URL Markdown formats I have tried. I believe this change was the following one that was mentioned in the 24.07 changelog:

Improve goto_file's (gf) automatic path detection strategy (#9065)

[tryoxiss]

It doesn't work for images for me, it opens the file in helix (despite being binary), and using xdg-open on it opens it in my normal image viewer, which is what I would expect helix to also do).

[hoichi]

I'm not a helix dev, but think that's a separate issue. Parsing the url/path at point without having to select it obviously works. Deciding to use external app vs opening in helix depending on the file extension seems a good idea but it's a separate improvement.