I was using Helix for some time, however what stopped me at some point was lack of persistent state in the editor. Helix is a powerful IDE, so you start to use it as an IDE, work on a project and close the editor at some point. How do you get the last opened files when you start the editor again?
Right now there is now way to do that, because there is no consensus on how the state should be stored. That's a worse developer experience, compared with vim for instance.
Another story is that some people pointed out a missing feature - moving lines or blocks of text up and down, as more advanced IDEs do. I volunteered to implement this feature, however I'm getting impression that the community is a bit puristic when it comes to features like that, based on feedback I get.
One argument is that this feature will make the code too complex to maintain (write your own bindings if you want that). Another that have been brought up is that acting on selected lines, instead of characters violates the rule act-by-selection (that is, modify only selected characters in the buffer, similarly how visual mode in vim works).
I acknowledge these arguments, yet I got a feeling that the community is a bit too perfectionist.
Not really what you are asking for, I know, but: run Helix in tmux and leave it running there. Sure, it's not going to survive computer reboots, but your state will survive almost anything else (in particular, closing terminal windows or logging out of a remote server if that's where you are working).
> Another story is that some people pointed out a missing feature - moving lines or blocks of text up and down, as more advanced IDEs do. I volunteered to implement this feature, however I'm getting impression that the community is a bit puristic when it comes to features like that, based on feedback I get.
Wait, what does this add? I feel like in Helix I would just select a bunch of lines (say, via treesitter or the x command), and then I'd delete them, and paste them somewhere else. Could you elaborate what the difference is between this and 'moving lines or blocks of text up and down'?
Yeah, you can use registers or the system clipboard, however this takes more actions and puts stuff into your clipboard history. Maybe it's just my way of working, but I move lines above or below when reorganizing lists in markdown or other basic text operations. For me it's as useful IDE feature as multiple cursors and in fact I often use them together.
All the major IDEs like sublime/jetbrains/vscode have both of these functionalities.
Perhaps you can try Ctrl+z to background the editor, do whatever you need to, and then run 'fg' (foreground I think) to get back into it. It should just stay paused in the background for you.
Right now there is now way to do that, because there is no consensus on how the state should be stored. That's a worse developer experience, compared with vim for instance.
Another story is that some people pointed out a missing feature - moving lines or blocks of text up and down, as more advanced IDEs do. I volunteered to implement this feature, however I'm getting impression that the community is a bit puristic when it comes to features like that, based on feedback I get.
One argument is that this feature will make the code too complex to maintain (write your own bindings if you want that). Another that have been brought up is that acting on selected lines, instead of characters violates the rule act-by-selection (that is, modify only selected characters in the buffer, similarly how visual mode in vim works).
I acknowledge these arguments, yet I got a feeling that the community is a bit too perfectionist.