Evil Helix

Crude Netrw

I managed to put together a crude implementation of netrw that actually works pretty well. The code is crude at the moment too, so there may be bugs.

Why would I use this?

Often I find myself working on a file within a folder and I'd like to see the other files available within that same folder. In standard Helix you would have to launch the file picker and search for the folder name (possibly even more specific if there's similarly named folders), which hopefully we can all argee is much slower than having this information presented to you in a neat buffer.

How to use

Press - to open Netrw. If pressed at a scratch pad, the working directory will be lauched that Helix was launched from. If pressed while a file is focused, it will open at the directory of that file.

You'll notice that NORMAL mode becomes NETRW mode and you see files and folders. You can navigate just like any other buffer, but keys that would change text or enter different modes have been disabled.

Press enter to open. If the line under your cursor is a directory, netrw will open that directory and you will remain within netrw. If it's a file, that file will be opened and the netrw buffer will close.

Further goals

I'd like to figure out how to color the directories so that they stand out more. I'd also like to place symbols in front of them like a folder or the icon for whatever language the file is. The super long term goal would be to be able to edit the buffer and have it edit the actual file system like oil.nvim does. I fear that Helix is not currently equipped for such asks... from what I can tell it's not very flexible from how the devs designed it and I don't know enough about the project to build something like that from scratch.

Project Goals

• Implement VIM motions as closely as possible
• Reuse Helix's already implemented functions as much as possible
• Integrate lazygit into Helix somehow (very long term goal)
• Integrate an oil.nvim style file browser (very long term goal)

What works

V-motions

• v

  • w/W
  • b/B
  • e/E

• vi (select inside textobject) and va (select around textobject)

  • w/W
  • p
  • treesitter objects
    • f for function
    • t for type
    • a for argument
    • c for comment
    • T for test
  • pairs
    • {
    • (
    • [
    • etc

  NOTE: The pairs matching first looks for any surrounding pair and if not found, will search for the next one forward

• vt and vf

  • i.e. vt" or vT" to select until " forward or backwards
  • i.e. vf" or vF" to select to " forward or backwards
  • using a count like 3vf"

• V enters visual line mode

D-motions

• dd deletes entire line

  • accepts counts like 3dd to delete 3 lines

• D to delete from cursor to end of line

• d

  • w/W
  • b/B
  • e/E

• di (select inside textobject) and da (select around textobject)

  • w/W

  • p

  • treesitter objects

    • f for function
    • t for type
    • a for argument
    • c for comment
    • T for test

  • pairs

    • {
    • (
    • [
    • etc

    NOTE: The pairs matching first looks for any surrounding pair and if not found, will search for the next one forward

• dt and df

  • i.e. dt" or dT" to delete until " forward or backwards
  • i.e. df" or dF" to delete to " forward or backwards
  • using a count like 3df"

C-motions

• C to change from cursor to end of line

• c

  • w/W
  • b/B
  • e/E

• ci (select inside textobject) and ca (select around textobject)

  • w/W

  • p

  • treesitter objects

    • f for function
    • t for type
    • a for argument
    • c for comment
    • T for test

  • pairs

    • {
    • (
    • [
    • etc

    NOTE: The pairs matching first looks for any surrounding pair and if not found, will search for the next one forward

• ct and cf

  • i.e. ct" or cT" to change until " forward or backwards
  • i.e. cf" or cF" to change to " forward or backwards
  • using a count like 3cf"

Y-motions

• yy yanks entire line

  • accepts counts like 3yy to yank 3 lines

• y

  • w/W
  • b/B
  • e/E

• yi (select inside textobject) and ya (select around textobject)

  • w/W

  • p

  • treesitter objects

    • f for function
    • t for type
    • a for argument
    • c for comment
    • T for test

  • pairs

    • {
    • (
    • [
    • etc

    NOTE: The pairs matching first looks for any surrounding pair and if not found, will search for the next one forward

• yt and yf

  • i.e. yt" or yT" to yank until " forward or backwards
  • i.e. yf" or yF" to yank to " forward or backwards
  • using a count like 3yf"

Misc

• Normal and Insert modes no longer selects as you go (removes Helix default behavior)
• Helix shows available options for keys as you press them
• w/W, e/E, and b/B all go to the correct spot of word
• t and f
  • i.e. t" or T" to move until " forward or backwards
  • i.e. f" or F" to move to " forward or backwards
  • using a count like 3f"
• S to change entire line
• $ to go to end of line
• ^ to go to first non-whitespace of line
• 0 to go to beginning of line
• % to go to matching pair beneath cursor

What doesn't work/TODO

• Enter Visual mode by pressing vv because I haven't figured out how to set a timer to default to Visual mode if nothing is pressed immediately after v
• Currently there is no Visual Block mode because I think Visual mode combined with multicursor does the same thing
• Helix seems to add an additional block that the cursor can be moved to at the end of every line
• When using dd or yy commands, the cursor position is not kept
• Motions like cip or cif do not search for next occurence of paragraph or function
• Motions with pairs like ci{ do not work with a count
• Comments
  • Implement gcc to comment in Normal mode
  • Implement gc to comment in Visual mode
  • Implement gb to block comment in Visual mode
• Probably lots of motions with counts that don't work
• Refactor evil functions to match Helix architecture (i.e. _impl functions)
• Refactor tests for new motions and behavior (very long term goal)

Installation

Installation documentation.

Contributing

Contributing guidelines can be found here.

I reserve the right to reject any suggestions or PRs for this fork.