Recipes - helix-editor/helix GitHub Wiki

Includes common solutions to some problems.

Helix comes with basic git integration such as the ability to see which files have been modified on the gutters, and acting on git hunks as text objects. But a more comprehensive git integration can be desired, which is understandable.

Lazygit is the most popular git TUI and you can smoothly integrate it with Helix with the following keymap:

# helix/config.toml
[keys.normal]
C-g = [
    ":write-all",
    ":insert-output lazygit >/dev/tty",
    ":redraw",
    ":reload-all"
]

Helix includes a basic built-in file explorer space + e (workspace directory) and space + E (directory of current file).

However, you can also use yazi which is a blazingly fast and extremely powerful explorer written in Rust with tons of features, including media preview (images, documents, videos), advanced search and file manipulation, and more.

You can replace Helix's file explorer keybindings with Yazi that will open file in the same directory using the following keymap.

[keys.normal.space]
e = [
  ":sh rm -f /tmp/unique-file-h21a434",
  ":insert-output yazi '%{buffer_name}' --chooser-file=/tmp/unique-file-h21a434",
  ":insert-output echo \"x1b[?1049h\" > /dev/tty",
  ":open %sh{cat /tmp/unique-file-h21a434}",
  ":redraw",
]
E = [
  ":sh rm -f /tmp/unique-file-u41ae14",
  ":insert-output yazi '%{workspace_directory}' --chooser-file=/tmp/unique-file-u41ae14",
  ":insert-output echo \"x1b[?1049h\" > /dev/tty",
  ":open %sh{cat /tmp/unique-file-u41ae14}",
  ":redraw",
]

If both Helix and Yazi have mouse support enabled, they will conflict, you can use this trick to reset the mouse state when exiting Yazi and returning to Helix:

  ':redraw',
+  ':set mouse false',
+  ':set mouse true',
]

In helix, you can perform search-and-replace in a file by using % to select the whole file and then s to match a regex against the file, placing cursors on each match.

But what if you want to perform a project-wide search and replace? Helix currently doesn't provide that functionality, but there is an external tool called scooter which was created exactly for this purpose. Check it out!

You can create a keybinding to open scooter inside of Helix without having to leave the terminal:

[keys.normal]
C-r = [
    ":write-all",
    ":insert-output scooter >/dev/tty",
    ":redraw",
    ":reload-all"
]

The Esc key is quite far away from the home row on most keyboards. Due to this fact, many people remap Caps Lock to Esc.

To do this, follow instructions for your operating system.

You can use keyd, which is a modern alternative to xmodmap compatible with Wayland and XOrg.

1. Install keyd using your system's package manager

2. Start the keyd daemon:

   sudo systemctl enable keyd

3. Place the following in /etc/keyd/default.conf

   [ids]
   *
   [main]
   # Maps capslock to escape when pressed and control when held.
   capslock = overload(control, esc)
   
   # Remaps the escape key to capslock
   esc = capslock

4. Run sudo keyd reload to reload the config set.

1. Open System Settings > Keyboard > Keyboard Shortcuts > Modifier Keys

2. Map the caps lock key to escape.

AutoHotkey is a free and open source scripting language for Windows, primarily useful for remapping keyboard keys in our example.

1. Install AutoHotkey from the AutoHotkey installation page.

2. Create a new remap-caps-lock.ahk file on your desktop.

3. Right-click on the new script file and select Edit script.

4. Add this line to the script:

   CapsLock::Esc

5. Run the script by double-clicking on it. It will start running in the background.

1. Press Win + R to open the Run dialog.
2. Type shell:startup and press Enter.
3. Copy the remap-caps-lock.ahk file and paste it into the Startup folder.

The script will run automatically every time you start your computer.

At the moment, there's no way to open a terminal from within Helix. Despite that, many users prefer using Ctrl + z which puts the current process to sleep.

When you run this command from inside Helix, it will be put to sleep. You'll be able to access the terminal again, browse files, and do everything else you usually do.

Once you need to return back to Helix, you can type fg in the terminal which will bring Helix back from sleep and resume it exactly where you left it. You can use this to run background processes while using Helix, and other shell commands.

Use Ctrl + Z to toggle between Helix and Terminal

If you prefer using Ctrl + z to put Helix to sleep, and then use Ctrl + z to wake it up again instead of using fg, then you can!

Depending on your shell, put a snippet of code into your terminal.

Add the following to your ~/.zshrc:

# Allow Ctrl-z to toggle between suspend and resume
function Resume {
  fg
  zle push-input
  BUFFER=""
  zle accept-line
}
zle -N Resume
bindkey "^Z" Resume

Add the following to your fish config file:

bind \cz 'fg 2>/dev/null; commandline -f repaint'

This is possible since fish v3.2.0.

Source: Binding CTRL-Z.

As of version 0.103, nushell has support for background jobs.

Add the following in your config:

$env.config.keybindings ++= [
  {
    name: "unfreeze",
    modifier: control,
    keycode: "char_z",
    event: {
      send: executehostcommand,
      cmd: "job unfreeze"
    },
    mode: emacs
  }
]

Use bash-preexec.sh to:

• Disable the Ctrl-Z keybinding before printing the prompt
• Enable the Ctrl-Z keybinding before executing a command

This way, we are able to repurpose Ctrl-Z when in a Bash interactive prompt. But any command ran by Bash will still be able to suspend normally with Ctrl + Z.

You might need to change this path to your bash-preexec.sh location.

source ~/.config/bash/bash-preexec.sh
preexec () {
  stty susp '^Z'
}
precmd () {
  stty susp undef
}

# Bind Ctrl-Z to "fg %-" (resume next to last suspended job, or last if only one)
# This binding works like this:
# - If you have one job, Ctlr-Z will toggle in and out of it.
# - If you have more  jobs, "Ctrl-Z Ctrl-Z" will toggle between the last two.
bind '"\C-z":"fg %-\n"'

If you want list items to continue when you press Enter or o and such, you can add this to your config:

[[language]]
name = "markdown"
comment-tokens = ["-", "+", "*", "- [ ]", ">"]

This will also work in other markup language if they use a similar syntax to Markdown's.