In a similar vein to NeoVim today we look at the Helix text editor. This is a terminal based code editor heavily inspired by the classic Vi/Vim text editors using a nearly identical control set while including more features out of the box than most of the other Vim alternatives. The price paid for this convenience however is a lack of extensibility, as Helix lacks a plugin system. Helix is a free project with binaries available on most platforms through most major distribution systems. It is open source under the MPL 2.0 license.
Key features of Helix include:
Multiple selections
Multiple cursors as a core editing primitive, inspired by Kakoune. Commands manipulate selections which allows concurrent code editing.
Tree-sitter integration
Tree-sitter produces error tolerant and robust syntax trees, which enables better syntax highlighting, indent calculation and code navigation.
Powerful code manipulation
Navigate and select functions, classes, comments, etc and select syntax tree nodes instead of plain text.
Language server support
Language specific auto completion, goto definition, documentation, diagnostics and other IDE features with no additional configuration.
Built in Rust, for the terminal
No Electron. No VimScript. No JavaScript. Use it over ssh, tmux, or a plain terminal. Your laptop battery life will thank you.
Modern builtin features
Fuzzy finder to jump to files and symbols, project wide search, beautiful themes, auto closing bracket pairs, surround integration and more.
Key Links
You can learn more about the Helix editor and see it in action in the video below.