Micro - not quite as fancy as Helix but it’s a static binary, bells and whistles included, and ready to go without config. If you’re still using nano/pico, micro is a nice step up in functionality without the complexity of vim et al.
Multiple cursors, splits and tabs, mouse support, syntax highlighting, keyboard shortcuts that are more noob-friendly / familiar, it’s great.
I don’t know why Micro hasn’t completely replaced Nano in the Linux world.
Wait, yes I do.
Despite believing it to be better in every way, my dumb fingers keep automatically reaching for the Nano keyboard shortcuts.
You know what the key combo is to copy a selection of text in Micro?
Ctrl C, why would it ever be anything else?
You know what the key combo is to copy a selection of text in Nano?
Fucking shift, alt, 6.
6!!
And then Ctrl U to paste. I hate that I’m used to that.
Never heard of that key combo in nano before, I’ve always used ctrl-K (which actually cuts, then I have to paste it back again if I want to leave that text in place).
[Edit] Looks like you only need to hit alt-6, not shift-alt-6, to copy a full line or whatever text has been highlighted.
Helix. A perfect programmer’s editor you can use with almost no config.
Interesting. Have you spent any time with neovim? If so, I’m curious how they compare. I was just starting to investigate the nvim ecosystem, but it’s quite daunting. Still, I like the idea of everything being open source, and using plugins to augment my workflow.
Helix was inspired by neovim. Though mostly the inbuilt LSP/tree sitter support. Its keybindings are a mix between what neovim has and kakoune, though closer to kakoune I think. The major advantage IMO that helix has over neovim is built in support for most things you need plugins for in neovim as well as sane defaults out the box. You don’t need 10s of plugins and 100s of lines of config to get helix to work like a modern editor - it just does out the box. All you need to do is install the LSP server for the languages you are interested in and launch helix.
The major downside ATM is it has no plugin support at all. Which is not as bad as it sounds as it includes so much out the box that you would typically require plugins for in neovim. They are working on plugin support though so it is only a matter of time for this to be fixed. Currently I don’t feel the need for any plugins when using it so IMO it is not a deal breaker for me or my workflow. But the need to manage large configs and sets of plugins had already become too cumbersome in neovim for my liking.
I used vi and then neovim for about 20 years (like the other @pimeys). I switched to kakoune first because nvim’s plugins were a mess and the LSP integration was unreliable. With all the plugins needed to get a decent dev editor, startup was starting to get slow. Kakoune had multi-select. But mainly, I switched because one necessary plugin (I think it was the LSP one) insisted on starting a nodejs server. Plugins were written in whatever, and running nvim meant spawning Ruby, Python, NodeJS, and whatever else processes; I switched because the nvim ecosystem was getting as bloated as EMACS.
I bounced from Kakoune to Helix after a couple of years, because Kakoune relies heavily on chording, and modality (pressing a key to get into a mode to do something or some things) is superficial; Helix makes much greater use of modes, often nested, and feels much more faithful to the vi philosophy to me. Also, Tree-Sitter is a disruptive technology.
I’d describe it as “NeoVim for people who don’t want to spend time configuring it”. It has syntax highlighting (for pretty much any language you can think of) and LSP support out of the box. And the config file is just a TOML file. Here’s my current config for example:
theme = "monokai_pro_spectrum"
[editor]
line-number = "relative"
middle-click-paste = false
[editor.statusline]
mode.normal = "NORMAL"
mode.insert = "INSERT"
mode.select = "SELECT"
That’s it. No need to deal with Lua or VimScript
Also using commands after typing the : is easier than in NeoVim since Helix will show you a list of available commands and a description of the closest match (or the one you choose from the list with the tab key). It looks like this:
I use Helix for quickly editing files and coding
Same, I switched to helix about a year ago, and do all my coding (except for android because of they don’t make it easy to not use android studio).
I was on vim for decades, but helix is finally the one that’s powerful enough to make me switch.
Another vote for hx!
Getting a productive setup for Python work is a matter of a few extra lines of TOML. The pre-release version on master also allows for multiple LSPs per language, which means I can combine pyright with ruff.
The modal key chords are verb-object instead of object-verb. It’s not a main selling point to me. However, you get multi-cursors out of the box, which I’ve always found simpler than e.g. macros. In general, keybindings are discoverable. I learn something new every week.
All in all, despite a few rough edges, it’s a nice alternative to needing to get a PhD in neovim configuration to get anywhere remotely near the cool setups other people are rocking.
Kate. Its such a brilliant foundation.
I currently have no idea of how to do it but in theory you can add any languages autocomplete, as well as huge libraries of auto-text (like in VSCode, templates for code stuff).
And its fast, unlike stupid electron VSCodium
I’m a new Kate convert. I had some issue on my system where GTK apps would break under Nvidia, something to do with font rendering. I tried Kate and was like “cool it works” and then I discovered how amazing and lightweight it is. Great editor.
Kate is my togo. With a terminal panel and latex->Unicode plugin is perfect for julia. I don’t need it, but you can also set up its LSP client.
I also like Kate. I use it for Python, Html/css and some other stuff. I really like it since it’s light and fast but full of features. Also integrates well with my desktop.
