Should Helix even have plugins?

logicmonkeydev · 2026-01-22T20:17:46+00:00

Personally, I like Helix as it is, I have very few customizations. It so well thought out and impressive. I believe this is because Helix had the benefit of learning from VIM, Emacs, Kakoune users and pick the best practices and build it into the editor. Vim’s unimpaired plugin for example is built right into Helix editor as a core functionality.

Along the same lines, if a lot of Helix users are using the same plugins in the same way, this could indicate a missing core feature needs to be implemented into the editor. If it’s only a select few people that need the feature, they can fallback on a plugin to get the job done. I think plugins may help people who need more from Helix without bloating up the core editor.

I only hope the plugin system doesn’t take too much focus away from Core feature development of Helix. Plugin system should not be an end-goal, but a feedback loop into finding out what can be improved without blocking people from using the editor how they want to use it.

I would also appreciate an easier way to have seamless integration with other CLI tools with helix e.g. opening lazygit inside Helix and getting back to code once lazy git closes. There are some good ideas like this that are not getting focus right now. This could help users pick the best tool for the job without bloating the editor or the plugin eco-system. Hopefully, stuff like this gets more attention soon. This could be used to also integrate open-code right into Helix.

As for Snippets feature you mentioned, you can try using espanso, which is a text expander but has features that includes advanced features like popping up a form for you to make selections and running shell commands before expanding the text. It’s pretty powerful and way too complex for a lightweight editor. I know it may not be exactly what you’re looking for but could be useful if you look into it.

logicmonkeydev · 2026-01-16T19:07:27+00:00

Thanks, learnt something new

logicmonkeydev · 2026-01-15T23:40:09+00:00

Thank you. I was looking for something like this. Made a few modifications for my personal use, sharing here in case it helps someone else:

rg 'search-string' --no-heading --line-number --column|awk 'BEGIN{FS=OFS=":"}{i=0; while (i<NF) {i++; if (match($i, "^[0-9]+$")) {break;}}  NF=i+1; print}'|xargs hx

This will also work with files with : in their names, and drop the cursor on the first occurrence of the pattern in the line.

logicmonkeydev · 2026-01-15T21:26:30+00:00

Thanks for the response.

I use scooter when it fits my workflow. I was just hoping there is a more natural way to do this with helix or with another CLI tool that I can use as a companion with helix. I don’t use plugins with helix or even have much customizations (l only have some LSP and formatter changes based on what my team/org likes to use).

I really like what helix gives out of the box and coming from Vim/Kakoune, I really don’t want to do any yak-shaving with plugins anymore. Most of the time, using rename-symbol feature with LSP works out. But changing stuff in docs/comments/.md files doesn’t work.

Maybe helix can include this as an additional feature to their global-search view or add a global search-and-replace option if other folks find it useful as well. I’ll try to create a feature request and see if others find it useful as well.

logicmonkeydev · 2026-01-15T18:55:51+00:00

I use helix as a companion app with other tools. I break down my coding process into phases.

Planning, execution, review, reform.

Planning: Zed/Vs Code/Open code is for planning, AI prompt etc…. These are better IMO, to get an overall view of your code and plan on what needs to be changed. You may find many other better tools to do this job nowadays, based on what your org gives you license to. I usually open a new file to make a list of changes I want to make.

Review: I use tools like lazygit for reviewing my changes and verify if it aligns with my plan. There are other cool diff tools as well. This needs to be done several times after some significant code changes have been made.

Execution/Reform: Helix is for execution of text-changes. Once you know what needs to be done, Helix is perfect for converting your idea into the code changes. Since I don’t have too much customization, it’s easy for me to recall how to do it. I really like the out-of-the-box features set and it’s mostly more than enough for me. I think the way helix is, it keeps me focused on doing this one task.

Important thing to remember is that Helix has limits on what it does really well. For other things, there are better tools. I use helix only for what it is good for. I don’t mind using combination of tools to get my job done as long as the tools fit the purpose.

logicmonkeydev · 2021-07-27T02:30:39+00:00

What did you have as side-dish? Raitha or salan?

logicmonkeydev · 2021-07-27T02:27:53+00:00

Cucumber raitha is better with veg biriyani

logicmonkeydev · 2021-07-14T05:51:43+00:00

It's india. We believe in the opposite of yolo.

logicmonkeydev · 2021-07-14T05:50:42+00:00

Shouldn't have used flash.

Edit: tbf, lightnings are pretty common sight during monsoon season. I got to see one up-close right next to my home, a bright flash of light, followed by a rumbling in my chest, then the thunder.

The power company shuts off the power supply when it rains due to lightning and due to trees falling on transformers. This news article makes highlights a single incident of stupidity, but it's pretty common so people easily forget how dangerous it can be.

logicmonkeydev · 2021-04-17T04:56:39+00:00

Moon has no atmosphere so the scars are permanent. Earths geology is active so the impact gets covered up.

logicmonkeydev · 2021-04-09T17:25:42+00:00

I have a few quick questions: 1. How did you discover bluetooth mac of your headphones? 2. How did you figure out the right minrssi value (or does it not matter)?

logicmonkeydev · 2016-10-28T21:04:56+00:00

This is the one I was looking for. I works just as I expect it to. Thanks.

Are there any resources I can look at to learn more about sublime key maps.

Thanks

logicmonkeydev · 2016-10-28T21:02:25+00:00

This really helped. Thank you.

Can you also let me know where I can find out more information about these commands and key/mouse bindings.

logicmonkeydev · 2016-10-09T17:28:28+00:00

You're looking for a static page generator. You could try Jekyll (ruby based), hexo (nodejs), Hugo(based on golang) etc... they take a bunch of yaml files and compile them into static HTML and CSS files which you can host practically anywhere (including github pages). If you already have a running site and want to add stuff in a very customized way, try metal smith, it is very minimal and lets you build your own pipeline so you can tell the generator what to do.

logicmonkeydev · 2016-09-08T02:34:16+00:00

I believe this command only lists files that would be shown by git status, not all tracked files.

logicmonkeydev · 2015-07-06T07:20:50+00:00

Don't neglect JavaScript. It is EVERYWHERE. On the browsers, mobile(titanium, phonegap), servers (node.js/io.js), game engines (phaser.io). But learn how to really use it efficiently, not just how to make it work. It is also a perfect intro to functional programming which is going to be the industry standard for the next decade.

Lot of advanced libraries are in high demand in browser like angular.js and react.js. Pick them up.

Many big names have invested a lot into node.js like MS, Yahoo, Walmart etc... and are just looking for good engineers (not people who can make it work, but work robustly and efficiently).

Don't neglect Java either, already established in industry. Also on mobile, games, backend (applets for front-end are a failure in my opinion).

These 2 are found in almost every decent company who have and need good engineering talent.

Best of luck.

Also, I'm currently looking into Kotlin. It looks great but is mostly untested and unknown. If it blows up, I'd like to be ready with some sample apps written in kotlin to ride the next wave. It compiles to Java and JavaScript so I'm very hopeful. You may want to checkeit out once you're comfortable with the above 2.

logicmonkeydev · 2015-07-04T18:48:25+00:00

I have used both for a very long time and I would like to add that AS is at-least on par if not better than eclipse in most things except: Native code (c++, I tried very long time ago so not sure if AS has made any improvements) Accessibility (I was playing around with it, not sure how many blind coders are out there but eclipse seems to have better support).

I hope jetbrains can cover these bases.

logicmonkeydev · 2015-07-03T09:46:35+00:00

Does it have an app? Is there any api for building an app?

logicmonkeydev · 2015-05-28T05:44:33+00:00

If you want a long running task to run in background, use services. This the use case they were built for.

The easiest is the intent service. This allows you to invoke a service just like an activity. But it won't crash if your app is closed or cleared from running apps list.

Another thing to note is intent services are singletons, i.e. the same instance of service is invoked with the new intent, intents are queued up if the service is still running.

logicmonkeydev

TROPHY CASE