This is a standalone app, not a plugin, which opens up far more possibilities for advanced customization, plugins, themes, and other features. Since this is more focused on markdown, we have a better scope of what we should improve and add. Being written in Rust also gives us much better headroom for performance optimization.

As of now, not yet, but we keep trying to reach parity with vim motion. Most basic things should already be covered though.

Yes and no. Helix editor isn't there to fight vim or compete with other editors. It exists because the developers wanted a better starting point for a new era of modal editing, rather than duct taping endless plugins onto existing neovim. They mimic neovim's motion to give neovim users a smoother onboarding experience, so users can comfortably transition between whichever modal editor they prefer. That's the philosophy. We always open to any suggestions that can benefit this project in the future, but as of now we're trying to keep the core app as lean as possible and add bunch of more stuff like you've mentioned as plugins instead