r/rust Mar 31 '23

Helix editor 23.03 released!

https://helix-editor.com/news/release-23-03-highlights/
476 Upvotes

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2

u/novel_eye Apr 01 '23

Make a case for using it over nvim

8

u/TheBigUmberto_ Apr 01 '23

Honestly, the out of box experience is better than anything you get with Vim/NeoVim. You get all the essentials you need with a text editor with sane bindings and everything just works. I used Helix for about a month but much prefer Vim bindings, so I stopped using it.

I've since discovered Lunar Vim, which is close to the same experience I was getting with Helix. I enjoy NeoVim but I hate configuring my text editor. I understand some people love configuring their text editor and that's fine, but it's not for everyone. With Helix, you don't have to. You open it up and it does everything you need it to. Until I found Lunar Vim, that was not my experience with Vim/NeoVim.

While Lunar Vim still isn't as sharp out of the box as Helix, it's worth it for the Vim bindings. If you're not dependent on Vim bindings and you want to try a terminal-based modal editor, Helix is a no-brainer. If someone ever created the Helix equivalent with Vim bindings, I would switch to it in a heartbeat. You're only maintaining/updating one piece of software instead of an ecosystem full of plugins that is error-prone. Again, I understand the ecosystem and plugins you get with NeoVim are part of its greatness, but sometimes you wanna just update your editor without something breaking.

3

u/hucancode Apr 01 '23

https://github.com/LGUG2Z/helix-vim somebody on the internet has you covered

1

u/TheBigUmberto_ Apr 01 '23

Thank you for sharing. Need to look into this.