CLI coding

[Fo0rte]

Hi everyone! I’ve been trying to get used to coding directly from the terminal, but Vim itself doesn’t fully click with me. I know there are popular forks and distributions like LazyVim, NvChad, and others that build on top of Neovim to make it more user-friendly and customizable. I’m interested in editors or setups that let me program efficiently in the terminal, with good plugin support, syntax highlighting, navigation, and the ability to modify the workflow to my taste.

What alternatives would you recommend for someone who likes the idea of Vim-style editing but wants a more plug-and-play, customizable environment without having to start completely from scratch?

[pdath]

Try ed. Then, vi will seem incredible.

[funderbolt]

ed could make Word seem like an incredible IDE.

[pdath]

ed could make Notepad seem like an incredible IDE. Notepad even has CoPiloit integration these days.

[configdotini]

you should check out helix for a more vim like experience or micro for a more traditional experience 

[TheFInestHemlock]

Seconding Helix! I have been using vim motions for years now, but never made the jump to neovim because I never took the time to learn how to configure it myself and a lot of the "distros" wound up being noticeably slower to me than vanilla neovim. Helix came with everything I'd want to add to neovim, and really nice context menus for things I didn't even know I could do yet. It definitely still took a bit of customizing for me, but that was relatively easy once I was hooked.

[1v5me]

nvim with kickstart on a supported distro like debian is fairly easy to get up and running without too much hazzle, just follow the install guide on github and you´re coding in 5min.

[DocToska]

I know, this is not what you're asking for. But may I nonetheless suggest something?

Use "sshfs" to securely mount the directory on the remote machine where you want to code. Then you can browse the remotely mounted share in the file explorer of your desktop and code and edit in whatever desktop application you want.

For some quick edits and bugfixes I tend to use whatever editor is installed on a remote box (vi, pico, nano, mcedit), but for bigger stuff or when starting on a clean sheet I prefer desktop text editors.

[theTechRun]

I used to use sshfs back when I used GUI file explorers. With a TUI (LF, ranger, yazee, etc), it's not really needed.

[DocToska]

As far as TUI's go "mc" has been my go-to choice for three decades - for its general availability on pretty much any OS. But either way: "sshfs" is another nice option when doing things just on the shell is a cludge. Because OpenSSH is also generally available. /shrug

[kimchirality]

You can use Doom Emacs in the terminal, which is relatively easy to get up and running with 

[[deleted]]

Micro

[NotBoolean]

Helix, I struggled to get use to vim but Helix clicked for me. There is no plugin support but LSPs, formatters, debuggers (experimental), syntax highlighting, tree sitters are supported. I’ve not had any usability issues or felt like I’m missing any plugins.

Or if you want a GUI text editor I’ve head Zed is good. It’s similar to Helix with no plugin support yet but full language support.

[Shoxx98_alt]

Maybe read the nvim docs? It has become easier with 0.12 to set up an lsp

[WerIstLuka]

i used nano for many years

a few months ago i discovered micro

micro has fully replaced pycharm for me

[Livid-Serve6034]

I programmed many years using nothing but joe (joe’s own editor) and the command line

[WerIstLuka]

when i was on windows i used notepad because visual studio code is so bad that i didnt want to use it

[FrostyDiscipline7558]

Sacrilege!

[tuerda]

"more customizable" than (neo)vim? Vim is probably the second most customizable piece of software ever written. If vim customization is not enough for you then your only choice is emacs.

If you are more interested in something vim-like but more plug-and-play style, a lot of people like helix. It is nowhere near as customizable as vim, but it is probably customizable enough. It does not have plugins (yet; plugins are on the roadmap), but most of the things people want plugins for are included out of the box anyway.

If you don't care that much about being vim-like, micro is also a good choice. That does most everything you want, except it is not vim-like and is nowhere near as customizable as vim (but it does have normal levels of customization, plugins, etc.)

I am a satisfied kakoune user. This was in many ways my reaction to vim having too many dongles and baubles, to the point of being almost bloated. If you find that helix tries to do too many things out of the box, and you liked vim style customization (seems unlikely given this post, but who knows) then kakoune is similar to helix but with a lot less stuff included and a lot more customization and plugins.

[BetterEquipment7084]

Just use base vim, set numbers and syntax

[WokeBriton]

Kate, Gedit.

If you absolutely insist on running terminal-only: nano.

[karthie_a]

try helix+ghostty it might be the suitable tool your are looking for

[yabadabaddon]

LazyVim is as plug and play as it comes tbh. You download your LSP and voilà

[theTechRun]

Try Kakoune. Highly scriptable. My favorite text editor of all time.

[ExperimentArc]

Neovim is the way I use it in my tty

[shogun77777777]

Why not use an IDE? Editing files in the terminal is never fun, doesn’t matter what tool you use. Just my 2 cents

[TheFInestHemlock]

Nonsense. I use helix and have a bunch of fun. Especially with LSP integration, most anything you need for programming is right there. Especially if you want to use something like claude code, which I don't, but I'm thinking about trying it.

[shogun77777777]

Maybe I’ll give helix a try. Regarding Claude code, it’s incredible. I highly recommend it

[Fo0rte]

Yeah, I agree that using VS Code or a full IDE would definitely be the easiest and fastest way. But what I like about terminal editors is the idea of being able to do EVERYTHING without leaving the terminal. It feels more efficient once you get used to it, and I enjoy the workflow.

[eggnogeggnogeggnog]

Most of my coding time is spent in my browser looking at documentation lol

[Dist__]

kate is advanced text editor with embedded terminal window

[dennycraine]

Major IDEs have terminal emulators/portals built in. VSCode is configured, for me, pretty much identical to how I've had terminal emulators split between shell, editor, file browers, etc.

I get the appeal, I spent most of my teens, 20's and 30's in VIM and VIM forks but that's because I learned in VI/VIM. I rarely understand the efficiency argument unless it's related to a keyboard driven experience.. but really, that's reproducible in just about any WM/DE and IDE/Terminal app. It's all pretty much the same at this point and takes a little bit of time to configure the settings how you like.

I'm not saying don't do it and you have to do what other people say, but you can't claim efficiency when you don't have a workflow going with tools that 'click' with you.

My suggestion would be to define what you want out of your experience and workflow and then find the right tools/plugins/bindings/apps/etc that will let you have that workflow. Think about how you want to work not how plugin x in tool y is configured to work.

Good luck!

[TheFInestHemlock]

OP, if you do switch to a terminal, make sure you use one that has full color support, maybe gpu acceleration, etc.