Command palette requires attention

[goyalyashpal]

[[TOC]]

Problem

Summary

The idea of command palette <Space> ? in a TUI editor too is awesome.
However, current implementation of it in helix looks very bad in frontend.

Details

• not easy to scan quickly due to lack of alignment in different sections
• duplicate enteries: 🔍 buffer
  (it means, search for the given term, and see the results)
• poor ellipsizing for long commands: 🔍 <c-j>

Solution

Explanation of current scenario

Current format (shown in bnf) is:

<description> (<keybind>) [<config-command>] [:<cli-command>]

Here:

• description: longest: order of sentence
• keybind: shortest: order of single word
• commands: medium: order of multiple words
• i.e. longest shortest medium
• the longer a thing is, the more variation in length it has
  So, obviously things get mixed up, unaligned and hard to scan.

Different modules for solution

So, i think one solution for sure can be:

0. put the keybind (shortest) in beginning of line: will become super easy to scan
   and as keybinds don't vary so hugely in length, will bring more relative alignment as well

Some further directions:

A. Using (hardcoded) ascending arrangement for all 3 i.e. "shortest medium longest" so:
"keybind cli-command config-command description"
B. Using 2 line layout
C. Using visually columnar format i.e. using spaces and maybe even pipes | too for indentation and alignment

Combining above modules to get a suitable solution

Solution using combination of above directions:

1. Combining (0) keybind in front, (A) ascending & (C) columnar view but just for keybind

<keybind>    [:<cli-commands>] [<config-command>] description

2. Combining all 3 (0), (A), (C), (B) to get format similar to the man or help format in CLIs

<keybind>    [:<cli-command>]      description long line lorem sit amet longer lines breaking at some point continuing on
             [<config-command>]    ipsum dorem sit amet wow son long without punctuation etc et al mal 

4. Combining (0) and (C - for keybind only)
   • i.e. pulling out keybinds in front and putting it in column, while staying single line
   • As the commands are sometimes not that descriptive, it may make sense to keep descriptions right after keybind

<keybind>    description [:<cli-commands>] [<config-commands>]

Screenshots of Current Scenario:

I have min-fied these to not pollute, click-open or pinch-zoom in these to get clear view