• cally [he/they]@pawb.socialEnglish
    9·
    6 days ago

    I used to use Neovim until I got tired of it and switched to Helix. I tried Emacs for a bit but turns out that Helix does everything I need it to do without any extra configuration.

    And of course I use caps:swapescape because I am not reaching all the way to the Escape key all the time.

        • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
          1·
          6 days ago

          I’m coming from kakoune. Language servers are something that’s shockingly hard to get running reliably. Helix has solved this for me

          • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
            1·
            6 days ago

            weird. I just use kakoune-lsp, and it works just fine out of the box, spare bit of copypasting from the readme on their github.

            I really like that i have to put in no effort for Helix to work, but unfortunately its just too rigid for me.

            And it also backs down on kakoune’s philosophy, returning back the necessity of selection mode. It really frustrates me in this aspect. Kakoune’s more heavy reliance on modifier keys seems way more handy and sensible to me. Helix’s way just creates unnecessary complications, and feels like a change for the sake of a change.

            • UltraBlack@lemmy.world
              1·
              5 days ago

              Helix pretty much shares the kakoune keymap and interactions, so no idea what you mean. If you mean the line select mode using x - you can bind that in the config.

              Also, plugin support using scheme is in the works. The dev still only sees it as a draft but it’s pretty usable already

              • CheesyFox@lemmy.sdf.org
                1·
                5 days ago

                no, what i mean is that they moved a whole list of motions into selection/extension mode. You can’t just press shift+w or shift+alt+i, you need to think “do i want to jump to the next selector, or do i want to extend the selection to it?”, press or not press v, and only then press w, alt+i or whatever. It’s literally vim2: the electric bogaloo in that aspect, because the user needs to think of a verb first: jump or extend in this case, then select nouns: word, paragraph, etc., then select the verb again, this time the actual operation i want to do to my selection. This practically defeats the whole point of the verb-noun motion reversal that the kakoune dev expressed first, and the helix dev repeated after.

                I learnt about helix first, so it wasn’t much of an issue, since a) i was just learning the motions, so i wasn’t striving for speed just yet b) i had no point of comparison… Until i tried kakoune. After that the idiocy of that design became apparent, and it can’t stop frustrating me ever since.

                P.S. i remember seeing the discussion about helix future plugin support back in 2023, when i just found it. Since it’s still just “in the works”, i’m feeling really skeptical about it, and about whether the plugin infrastructure will grow big enough. Kakoune is much more mature in that aspect

  • olenkoVD@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    1·
    4 days ago

    Personally, I have tried several times switching from VSCode to vim or nvim, but I just can’t live without Intellisense and scrolling with my mouse up and down. I also hated switching modes all the time.

    • clif@lemmy.world
      5·
      7 days ago

      I decided to give it an honest try after somebody mentioned it on lemmy a few weeks ago.

      … I really like it.

      I still pop open Theia if I’m just doing some research that has me hopping all around, or sometimes on a separate monitor for a referenced project/library associated with my work, but I do the actual work in Helix.

  • Wofls@feddit.org
    12·
    7 days ago

    Save yourself the trouble and just skip ahead: real programmers use butterflies

  • outerspace@lemmy.zip
    9·
    7 days ago

    The problem with Emacs is that it sucks but there is nothing better, and you are getting stuck with it forever. Welcome!

  • AceFuzzLord@lemmy.zip
    10·
    7 days ago

    I may be crazy, but for regular text file, VIM is usually my go to. But, because of tag auto completion Bluefish has been my HMTL/CSS editor for a while. Most other things are in VIM. Bash? VIM. Python? VIM. C? Trash bin! Did not like the C class I took last quarter!

    Exception being things like .docx or .odt files that have no business being opened in VIM.

    • lilith267@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
      6·
      6 days ago

      This is also my goal! …since 2020.

      I love vim/nvim but I’ve gotten used to using VIM more as a text editor then an IDE. Writing a script? Taking notes? Maybe even a small program? VIM all the way. Working on a big project that needs an LSP? Either spend the next 20 hours fucking with your VIM config and 20 plugins to get basic functionality… Or just open VSCode and install one plugin

      Heres to hoping since NVIM 0.11 with their LSP overhaul I can finnally make the full switch

      • Alcan@lemmy.world
        1·
        1 day ago

        Since… ¿when? omg I’m thinking to start using it to write my md files for Obsidian just to learn the basics. I mainly work with php or some framework so I guess I just need to find the correct set up for this one?

  • yetAnotherUser@lemmy.ca
    7·
    7 days ago

    Emacs and (Neo)Vim are a bit too overwhelming for me. I’ve tried Neovim for a relatively long time, but I felt kind of overloaded with the vast amount of features and plugins it has. I’ve tried Emacs a bit, but its complexity always scared me (not to mention it uses its own version of Lisp, a language that is notorious for its ability of creating new language features on the fly, hence even more complexity). I’ve been using Helix, and I couldn’t be happier. I’ve realized that I don’t really care much about editor customization, and that what I was looking for was just a cool modal editor with some useful features (such as file picker, LSP, tree-sitter, multiple cursors, …). The keybinds are also easier to grasp, as fewer of them feel arbitrary compared to Vim. In Vim and Emacs, it feels like you can do everything, while in Helix, it feels more like you can do everything the developers think that might be useful for you. Who knows, maybe I’ll try again Emacs and (Neo)Vim again in the far future, but I don’t feel like it for now.

    • BartyDeCanter@lemmy.sdf.org
      5·
      6 days ago

      May I recommend Helix? It’s a modal editor like vim, but has a better out of the box experience, better discoverability for commands, and uses an easier to understand select->command syntax.

      • WhosMansIsThis@lemmy.world
        7·
        6 days ago

        Just started using helix a few months ago and I’m in love. The movement took a second to get used to but its super efficient once you get the hang of it. I highly recommend it, especially if you’re doing any kind of programming or sysadmin work and you hate gui ides.

  • Lyubo@lemmy.mlEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    Good, good! You’re on the right way! But remember, there is a world outside your Emacs, don’t forget about it.

  • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    5·
    6 days ago

    I keep thinking that as I use vim, I’ll feel the need to learn more commands, but I hardly do anything except:

    • q, wq, or q!, quit with or without saving
    • i, insert
    • set:paste, preserves spacing
    • Shift-insert, pastes if shift-ctrl-v doesn’t work
    • / , search for a string (iirc, don’t really need it much).

    What are your vim GOTOs?

    • Stitch0815@feddit.org
      6·
      6 days ago

      My most used commands are also just the classics

      cw - delete the next word amd enter insert mode

      dd - delete line

      gg - go to first line

      G - go to last line

      :s/searchphrase/replacephrase - search and replace

      And a couple of visual mode commands do cut and paste blocks or comment out blocks of code

    • [object Object]@lemmy.world
      2·
      6 days ago

      I hope that you use the motion commands at least, because that’s the whole point of the separate modes. If not, you should look them up and add some of them to your workflow little by little.

      The most basic ones are wand b to go a word forward or back; 0 and $ to go to the start or end of the line, or g0 and g$ for the visual line. f to jump to a particular letter forward. { and } to go to the start/end of the paragraph.

      V is useful for selecting whole lines. ctrl-v for block selection (or ctrl-q, depending on your setup).

      % can jump or select to the matching parenthesis or brace. With matchit installed, it also jumps to matching keywords like end or HTML tags.

      gc comments out the selection (or uncomments it). Works with motions too, like gcc.

      For pasting, you should use p in the normal mode. Also P pastes before the cursor. This is useful for moving text around by deleting it with something like daw, jumping elsewhere, and doing p.

      And of course, the regex replacement with :s// is very useful if you have more than a few lines that need approximately the same change.

      • sem@piefed.blahaj.zoneEnglish
        1·
        5 days ago

        This is all very advanced to me. I use Home and End to go forward and back in the line, but w and b sound good to m (just wish they made more intuitive sense), also p and P.

        I should print out a ref sheet.

        • [object Object]@lemmy.world
          2·
          5 days ago

          Vim has a built-in tutorial on the motion commands and such. I don’t remember how it’s invoked, but probably something like :help tutorial. You’ll get an overview of the commands and see which ones might be useful to you right away. As I mentioned, I recommend getting the hang of them one or a few at a time, so they are incorporated in your toolbox.

          Speaking of help, it’s generally useful in Vim to use :help {something} when you want to recall how something works. It has consistent naming for the help pages for various functionality, e.g. :help :s shows the page about the :s command, and there are pages for every motion command, etc. — I don’t remember the prefixes as it’s been a while since I used Vim proper, but just :help should give you an index.

          Also, if you’re coding in Vim, there are ways to integrate documentation for your language, so that K would show help for the function or whatever under the cursor. Back in the day I’ve had PHP docs plugged into Vim, but it’s been a while, so idk how it’s done now. Iirc there are dumps of docs from the Dash app, which might be available as vimdocs.