[goldenshale]

Seriously, it hurts. It makes sense, but it hurts. If only there were a more gentle path to editor modes. Maybe some simple graphical representation of the modes and commands that could be down in the corner? Like a dynamic vim infographic that clued a user into the most likely commands.

[tester457]

Helix is beginner friendly. It's keybindings make more sense than vim's.

[IggleSniggle]

For me, the reason to learn vim is because if you know how to use it it's a really nice editor that's preinstalled on almost any system you shell into. I use VSCode on my home system and occasionally on a remote system, but I'll use neovim when doing a quick edit from the command line and vi when I happen to be o a remote system. In my ideal world, I would just use one editor everywhere, including if I'm hot-seating on a system that is not mine and without internet access: having vi already under my fingers is a nice approximation of great editor + everywhere.

[Lio]

Yeah but it’s a small island.

If you learn Vim you’ll have access to Vi and Vi-like interfaces in lots of other software including terminals, database clients and everything that uses readline.

[benrutter]

Curious what kind of interfaces you're thinking about? (Aside from vi, vim, nvim)

From my experience anything with "vi navigation" basically just means using the home row keys for navigation + modes. So I haven't come across many interfaces yet where the verb order differences between helix/vim come into play.

[broscillator]

In vimium I use vim navigation for scrolling around, / for search, and a bunch of tab actions that aren't vim accurate but vim inspired.

In mpv I use gg/G to getting to the beginning/end of a file.

Many terminal file managers use vim binds or idioms (such as x for delete, marks, etc).

[ttyprintk]

Then the question is readline. Not saying that vi or emacs deserve to win readline, but it’s up to you to describe how Helix mode would differ from vi mode.

[xigoi]

Overleaf, for example, supports most of Vim’s bindings.

[allarm]

Shells have Vi mode: bash, fish, zsh.

[linsomniac]

i3 window manager leans heavily on vim defaults for navigating windows.

[flkiwi]

Helix is wonderful. I did make one keybinding change: Switching in and out of Insert mode is CTRL-i so I don't have to wander off to the escape key so often.

[neilyio]

I think Helix by default binds `Ctrl-[` to return to normal mode.

That was more convenient for me, especially as I remap my caps-lock key to CTRL system-wide.

[scmkr]

it’s not helix, ctrl-[ produces the same key code as escape and it works the same in a terminal (so it works in vi, emacs, etc)

[scythe]

>If only there were a more gentle path to editor modes. Maybe some simple graphical representation of the modes and commands that could be down in the corner?

I taught myself vim by setting the vim cheat sheet to be my terminal background, though I greyed it out slightly so it didn't obscure what I was typing. Once you have that there are only a few phrases you really need to know: "+p, "+y, "+d to access the system clipboard, :split and :vsplit, C-w w to switch windows, and g C-g for word/char count.

https://www.glump.net/_media/howto/desktop/vim-graphical-che...

[Symmetry]

If I had a lot more free time, I've been noodling with some designs for a text editor with modes. It would start up by default in the equivalent of vim's insert mode where all the normal CUA keybindings (e.g. ctrl-c for copy) worked. But with many more. Then, if you go to the equivalent of normal mode you can just press X to do the same thing ctrl-X does in insert mode.