螺旋：后现代文本编辑器

螺旋：后现代文本编辑器
Helix: A post-modern text editor

## Helix: 一款现代文本编辑器 Helix 是一款用 Rust 构建的终端文本编辑器，旨在提供精简且强大的编码体验。它受到 Kakoune 的启发，将**多选和多光标**作为核心编辑功能，实现并发代码操作。利用 **Tree-sitter**，Helix 提供强大的语法高亮、智能代码导航和准确的代码分析。它拥有**内置的 IDE 类功能**——自动补全、诊断和文档——无需配置。与 Vim 或 Neovim 不同，Helix 优先采用现代方法，具有合理的默认设置和更小的代码库，使其更易于上手。虽然目前缺乏插件和 GUI（两者都计划在未来实现），但它开箱即用就提供了模糊查找器、项目范围搜索和精美主题等功能。它与 Kakoune 的不同之处在于，它将更多功能直接集成，而不是依赖外部工具。

## Hacker News 上关于 Helix 文本编辑器的讨论最近一篇 Hacker News 帖子介绍了 Helix，一款“后现代”文本编辑器，并引发了用户讨论，特别是那些有 Vim 使用习惯的用户。许多用户报告了切换到 Helix 的积极体验，称赞其“开箱即用”的方法以及对 Vim 用户来说相对容易的过渡。配置比 Vim 简单得多。然而，长期 Vim 用户表示适应 Helix 的细微变化存在挑战，发现很难克服数十年来养成的习惯。一位用户将其比作在 Vim 和 Emacs 之间切换的挣扎。其他讨论点包括对代码折叠功能的请求，以及对 Helix 文件体积较大的担忧，这源于 Rust 标准库和众多共享库插件的静态链接。尽管存在这些小缺点，Helix 似乎正在作为一款强大且用户友好的编辑器而越来越受欢迎。

Multiple selections

Multiple cursors as a core editing primitive, inspired by Kakoune. Commands manipulate selections which allows concurrent code editing.

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 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.

Frequent questions

Post-modern?!

It's a joke. If Neovim is the modern Vim, then Helix is post-modern.

Is it any good?

Yes.

Are there plans for a GUI frontend?

Eventually, yes! We'd like to prototype a WebGPU-based alternative frontend. See the discussion on GitHub.

What about plugins?

While there is currently no plugin system available, we do intend to eventually have one. But this will take some time (more discussion here).

How does it differ from Kakoune?

Mainly by having more things built-in. Kakoune is composable by design, relying on external tooling to manage splits and provide language server support. Helix instead chooses to integrate more. We also use tree-sitter for highlighting and code analysis.

How does it differ from Vim?

By starting from scratch we were able to learn from our experience with Vim and make some breaking changes. The result is a much smaller codebase and a modern set of defaults. It's easier to get started if you've never used a modal editor before, and there's much less fiddling with config files.