I've loved using helix. It's the only vim-like editor that just works great out of the box. This page is a list of tips and tricks that were not immediately apparent to me as I first started using it.

Cheatsheet

General Movement/Selection

g. - Go to last modification in current file. (This is great when you're checking something far away and then bouncing back.)

; - Un-select current selection

, - Collapse extra cursors

Tree-sitter Navigation/Selection

A-i - reduce selection to less of the syntax tree (Remember: "in")

A-o - expand selection to parent node of the syntax tree (Remember: "out")

Language Server

]d (or [d) - Move to next (or previous) diagnostic

gd - Go to definition

gr - Go to references

gi - Go to implementation

<space>k - Show docs for item under cursor

Tips

Suspend the Editor

C-z suspends your current helix session and drops you back into the shell. Use the fg command from the shell to resume the session exactly where you left it.

I didn't realize until I started using helix that this is the normal way to suspend an active process and give control back to the parent shell.

Un-select Text

Helix is unlike vim in that you get a visual selection of your movement as you move in normal mode. This is great until you need to unselect what your movement has selected.

If in the above example, you were to enter insert mode with i, you would be moved to the location before your current selection, which moves the cursor before the word movement.

To avoid this, you can collapse your selection to the cursor using the collapse_selection command, which is bound to ; by default.

Collapse Extra Cursors

You may occasionally end up with multiple cursors when performing actions like searching for a term in select mode. After you're done editing, the cursors don't go away on their own. Collapse back to a single cursor with keep_primary_selection which is bound by default to ,.

(Fun fact, coming from vim, I initially rebound , to use it as a leader key for other commands, not realizing I had overridden something fairly important...)

Open config.toml

Unlike vim, helix provides built-in commands :config-open and :config-reload for opening your configuration file and reloading it after it has been changed.