Looking for feedback after using Helix for a week

[LightAndLight]

I've been using Helix for a little over a week while taking notes on things I
wanted / couldn't couldn't figure out. I've come up with some answers and
workarounds, which I've included here here in the hope that it will be
search-engine friendly. The remainder are open questions with which I'm hoping
to get some guidance. I'm also keen to hear if you find a better way to do something
that I already have an answer for.

My context is coming from VS Code with Vim keybindings. I was convinced to try
Helix after reading https://phaazon.net/blog/editors-in-2022:

Then I realized how more powerful the [Helix]’ way ways. Since you “see” the
selections, you can select first and then decide what to do, or even change
your mind and extend a bit the selection. You have this nice visual feedback.

Now I'm hooked on the editing style. If I go back to VS Code, I'll be
looking for a Helix-style extension to replace my Vim one.

General

• Select all matches for a search pattern using a single keystroke

  e.g. in normal mode, type /hello then Enter. The first occurrence is
  selected. How to select all occurrences?

  Answer: use %s instead of /. % selects the entire document, and s will
  highlight all occurrences of the search term.

• Paste from system clipboard while in insert mode

  Related: Yank to system clipboard #76

  I can't use Ctrl-R like in Vim because there's no register for the system
  clipboard.

  Workaround: use terminal's "paste from system clipboard" command. In my case,
  Alacritty: Ctrl-Shift-V.

  Alternative (thanks to @CptPotato - comment): bind the paste command to a specific key in insert mode, e.g. keys.insert.C-p = "paste_clipboard_before".

• Create file by opening non-existent file in picker

  The file picker only opens files that exist. If I type a non-existent file
  name, I'd like an option to create and open said file.

  Workaround: use :open instead of file picker.

• Interactively select lines, starting from the bottom

  In Vim, I do V then a number of ks.

  Current answer: v then a number of ks then X to make the selection
  "whole-line".

• Paste a line below the current one

  Yp in Vim

  Current answer: xyP

• Move cursor to the end of the selection

  Suppose I've selected a range right-to-left by pressing vbbbbb, and I
  realise that I need to grow the selection to the right a little more. My
  instinct is to somehow get the cursor to the rightmost character in the
  selection and start pressing e.

  Answer: Alt-;

• Create missing parent directories when saving a file

  Answer: write! (introduced in 22.05)

• Go to the next diagnostic in workspace

  There's an open PR for this: Jump to next/prev diagnostic in workspace (#3116) #4201

  I expected ]d to do this and was surprised to find that it only navigates
  within a file.

  Workaround: use workspace diagnostic picker (Space then G)

• Display errors near cursor rather than in the top right corner

  Related: Inline Diagnostics #6417

  In VS Code, when I jump to the next error the error is rendered on the line
  below the cursor. The error
  lens
  puts many errors inline with the code, too. I like that I don't have to move
  my eyes to read the errors.

• Set a global default for :indent-style

  By default I want my tab key to insert 4 spaces. This should be overridden by
  language-specific settings.

• Custom tab width

  Related: Tab customization and retab #2576

  I like tab characters to be rendered as 8 spaces so that it's easy to see when
  I inserted a tab character instead of a space.

• Render whitespace with visible characters inside selection

  I sometimes like to render whitespace with visible characters but I find
  editor.whitespace.render = "all" too noisy. Having this behaviour within a
  selection is a good middle ground.

• Include hidden files / directories in file picker

  Answer: editor.file-picker.hidden = true

• Sort the selected lines

  In Vim it's :sort.

  Answer (thanks to @CptPotato - comment): split selection by lines (Alt-s), sort (:sort).

  Alternative: |, sort, Enter. Uses the system's sort program (cool!)

Language-specific

Markdown

• Open a link in my browser

  Ideally the language server would provide a code action for this. marksman doesn't.

  Workaround: select URL (usually mi( or mi<), Alt-|, xargs xdg-open, Enter

• Wrap lines in a syntax-aware manner (ideally as I type)

  :reflowing a single bullet doesn't indent the new lines. Doing it to a whole
  document does whacky things.

  I suspect this is something that the language server should do.

• Blockquote a paragraph

  Again, seems like the language server should provide a code action for this.

  Workaround (thanks to @CptPotato - comment): select paragraph (mip), split selection by line (Alt-s), insert blockquote character on each line (i>).

• Spell checking

  ltex-ls is a language server for
  spell checking. It only handles spell checking, so how do I make it work with
  a second language server like marksman that has Markdown-specific code
  actions?

  Answer (thanks to @David-Else - comment): Helix's main branch lets you set up multiple language servers for a single language.

Rust

• Bring up autocomplete dialog after :: and .

  e.g. TypeName:: or some_struct_value.

• Use rust-analyzer's postfix
  completions
  like expr.if and expr.match

  Answer: known missing feature, see
  rust-analyzer magic completions not working in helix #4831 and
  snippet support #395.

• Code actions like "Import `Name`" and "Fill match arms"

  For a while these didn't work for me. But now they do.

  Answer: works on >22.08 (?)

[David-Else]

Spell checking

ltex-ls is a language server for
spell checking. It only handles spell checking, so how do I make it work with
a second language server like marksman that has Markdown-specific code
actions?

Use the latest master with multiple language servers and these settings:

[language-server.ltex-ls]
command = "ltex-ls"

[[language]]
name = "markdown"
language-servers = [ "ltex-ls", "marksman" ]

Bonus! The latest ltex-ls can check git commits:

[[language]]
name = "git-commit"
language-servers = [ "ltex-ls" ]

For more, have a look at my dotfiles: https://github.com/David-Else/developer-workstation-setup-script/tree/main/dotfiles/helix/.config/helix (These are currently for Helix 23.05 and not the new master version with multiple language servers, so the above is not included. They will be updated in due course...)

[LightAndLight]

Thank you!

[CptPotato]

Paste from system clipboard while in insert mode

I can't use Ctrl-R like in Vim because there's no register for the system clipboard.

Workaround: use terminal's "paste from system clipboard" command. In my case, Alacritty: Ctrl-Shift-V.

You can bind the paste command to any key in insert mode:

[keys.insert]
C-p = "paste_clipboard_before"

Sort the selected lines

In Vim it's :sort.

Answer: |, sort, Enter. Uses the system's sort program (cool!)

Helix can sort, too. Except it's sorting arbitrary selections, not just lines.
So to sort your selection by line, just split it first: Alt-s then simply :sort.

Blockquote a paragraph

Again, seems like the language server should provide a code action for this.

Not a solution but more workarounds:

You can select the paragraph (mip) and add the block quote text to each line (Alt-s then i> ).

Alternatively, you can set the comment-token for markdown to > which lets you add/remove block quotes like comments (Ctrl-c).

[LightAndLight]

Thank you!

[adriangalilea]

Display errors near cursor rather than in the top right corner

In VS Code, when I jump to the next error the error is rendered on the line
below the cursor. The error
lens
puts many errors inline with the code, too. I like that I don't have to move
my eyes to read the errors.

Is there any solution to this?

[gabydd]

#6417

[chtenb]

Interactively select lines, starting from the bottom

This was addressed recently with some new commands to make this easier:

#9080 (comment)