In Helix you'd have to x downward or use v to enter visual mode. But you initially said that you "found kakoune bindings limiting". In kakoune you can 8Kxd, or 8K<a-x>d on less recent versions. The vim approach is usually superior for simple commands like "delete N lines", the kakoune approach is superior when you want to compose commands, e.g. `%sif<ret>f(<a-i>(sand<ret>cor` is "select all `if`, find `(`, select inside `(`, select all `and`, change to `or`"

In Helix, you can use `maf` to mark the outer function and then press `d` to delete it.

Legit. You can do nicer than that in Helix’s defaults, but you're right that it won't match d-8-up’s concision: instead of 8-up-9-x-d ("8-move up-9-select whole lines below-delete"), you can do v-9-up-x-d, ("select-9-this line and above-the whole lines-delete").

If you're asking about what helix can do in general, though, as opposed to just the defaults, you can configure it to:

  - use relative line numbering
  - map a key (say, capital X) to the opposite of x’s behavior — or even better, to `[“extend_line_up”, “extend_to_line_bounds”]` ; the latter won't "eat" the first press by using it to select the current line.
  - make the same tweak to lowercase x

Combined, that will get you back to 8-X-d (“8-select whole lines up from here-delete”) to delete up through where you can see 8 in the gutter (and 8-x-d in the other direction).