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Comment by e12e | Hacker News Reader

Not vim (by design) - but have you tried helix?

I've used vim at a moderate proficiency level for 10+ years, but Helix's selection -> action motion design is just better, for a lot of reasons.

Helix has been looking for a GUI solution for a while now. ( https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/39 ) I wonder if Lapce's UI toolkit would be a good fit.

Helix is a very good and well-managed project, but it's quite hostile towards its own community. There are no plugins, and they won't be in Wasm like users want, but in Scheme dialect named Steel, that nobody want... if at all. Missing features like copilot or file browser expected by the community are essentially never merged into the master. This might be a better path than total dispersion and destruction of what works, but my expectations do not align with what the creators offer, so I give them the freedom to choose. I keep my fingers crossed for its development, but I personally use something else.

"good and well-managed" vs "[merges everything] users want" - pick one

I pick to stay with neovim.

Generally agreed, but in the editor space that's where plugins come into play. The plugin story for Helix is a long one, but I think it's converging and bet it's coming within this year.

As a user, I certainly do not find it hostile.

In a "batteries included" edit a service like copilot that expose all data to a third party is a terrible anti-feature.

As for script-oriented plugins vs wasm - I see a tradeoff - and don't think neither are right or wrong.

Cross editor plugins via a common wasm api might be fun, but perhaps not very practical.

Edit: link to relevant issues and discussion:

https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/discussions/3806#discu...

https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/122

https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/1927

Copilot has many fans, and for many, the ability to use Copilot is more important than all the other "batteries-included" features. It's not for me or anyone else to judge. Everyone should make their own choices.

Regarding plugins, I'm with Helix from the beginning, i have read everything, and I understand the motivation well and can accept it. Perhaps this is what the ideal editor looks like for creators, but it definitely doesn't look like the ideal editor for me. I respect their decision, but I'm sticking with Neovim and might switch to ZED when Linux support becomes available.

I still don't understand why you claimed that:

> [Helix]'s quite hostile towards its own community.

Why do you consider switching to ZED from Neovim? ZED is lightyears away from a good Neovim setup in terms of functionality and efficiency. The problem with Neovim is the setup and config to do all, but you already mastered it.

Helix is a dream, as far as I can say from having played a lot with it, but only played. To be fully comparable to some IDE or Neovim setup like LazyVim, you need to complement it with other tools and use some workarounds, e.g. working the files (tree) or custom snippets.

(I'm still using VS Code to get my stuff done, but in a couple of weeks I got some time to spent to re-evaluate Helix and Neovim.)

You can use a snippet LSP to work around Helix not having a built-in LSP manager. They're listed in https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/issues/395

No but this seems neat! I'll check it out, thanks!

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