kakoune VS nvim-cmp

Helix's modal editing is based on Kakoune's modal editing which is like an evolution to Vim's modal editing. You can think of it as being always in selection (visual) mode. https://github.com/mawww/kakoune?tab=readme-ov-file#selectio...

And while it doesn’t use the sam language precisely, I think in the broader “postfix Vi with visual feedback” category Kakoune[1] also warrants mentioning. The command language, in my experience, feels much more logical than that of Vis coming from a blank slate (things might be different if you come from Vim, but even when I used Vim regularly I never used the editing language that much exactly because I could never remember the damn thing).

And having mentioned Kakoune it’d probably be unfair to then not mention Helix[2]. It has a very similar editing language, but it’s a fairly anti-Unix everything-bolted-in affair on the inside (“everything works out of the box” being the advertising take) compared to Kakoune’s Acme-inspired no-scripting scripting (there’s an ex-style command to exec a user program that can then drive the editor over stdio RPC, a set of hooks, and that’s it). So if you’ve come for the Plan 9 feels, I don’t expect Helix to be that appealing. It’s still a good editor, nevertheless.

[1] https://kakoune.org/

[2] https://helix-editor.com/

You can take a look at kakoune. The source code (excluding documentations, test cases, customizations etc.) is less than 40k. It is, IMHO, a show case of a C++ project in use.

> I wonder if the author has ever heard of vis[0]

Yes.

https://github.com/martanne/vis/wiki/Differences-from-Kakoun...

https://github.com/mawww/kakoune/wiki#onboarding

> which imho fulfills far better each one of those premises

Not very motivated for such a harsh critic..

I've been using Vim for years, but if there was one thing I could change, it would be the verb-noun order. The Kakoune[1] editor behaves mostly like Vim, but where Vim has `dw` as "delete word", Kakoune has it backwards: `wd`.

It might sound minor, but by placing the range first, Kakoune can give a preview of what will be changed. The longer or more complicated the command, the more this feature shines.

Strictly better as far as I know. A shame my muscle memory, and all default installations, are still stuck with Vim.

[1] https://kakoune.org/

Helix is a postmodern text editor built in Rust built for the terminal. It is inspired by Kakoune, another Rust based text editor. Helix has got multiple selections, built-in Tree-sitter integration, powerful code manipulation and Language server support.

vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "PmenuSel", { bg = c.background_light, fg = "NONE" }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "Pmenu", { fg = c.foreground, bg = c.background_light }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemAbbrDeprecated", { fg = c.foreground_light, bg = "NONE", strikethrough = true }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemAbbrMatch", { fg = c.blue , bg = "NONE", bold = true }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemAbbrMatchFuzzy", { fg = c.blue, bg = "NONE", bold = true }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemMenu", { fg = c.purple, bg = "NONE", italic = true }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindField", { fg = c.red }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindProperty", { fg = c.red }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindEvent", { fg = c.red }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindText", { fg = c.green }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindEnum", { fg = c.green }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindKeyword", { fg = c.green }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindConstant", { fg = c.yellow }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindConstructor", { fg = c.yellow }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindReference", { fg = c.yellow }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindFunction", { fg = c.purple }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindStruct", { fg = c.purple }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindClass", { fg = c.purple }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindModule", { fg = c.purple }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindOperator", { fg = c.purple }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindVariable", { fg = c.foreground }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindFile", { fg = c.foreground }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindUnit", { fg = c.orange }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindSnippet", { fg = c.orange }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindFolder", { fg = c.orange }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindMethod", { fg = c.blue }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindValue", { fg = c.blue }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindEnumMember", { fg = c.blue }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindInterface", { fg = c.aqua }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindColor", { fg = c.aqua }) vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, "CmpItemKindTypeParameter", { fg = c.aqua }) -- https://github.com/hrsh7th/nvim-cmp/pull/1689 vim.api.nvim_set_hl(0, 'FloatBorder', { fg = c.background_light, bg = c.background_light })

Doing a fast scan on the commit history this is probably related to https://github.com/hrsh7th/nvim-cmp/pull/1689 . Hope it helps.

https://github.com/hrsh7th/nvim-cmp This is an autocompletion engine https://github.com/nvim-treesitter/nvim-treesitter This allows NeoVim to install parsing scripts so NeoVim can do things like code highlighting. https://github.com/williamboman/mason.nvim Not strictly necessary, but allows you to access a repo of LSP, install them, and configure them for without you actively messing about in config files. https://github.com/neovim/nvim-lspconfig Also not strictly necessary, but vastly simplifies LSP setup. https://github.com/williamboman/mason-lspconfig.nvim This lets the above two plugins talk to each other more easily.

Edit: Solved I only had to do this

toggling sources by Treesitter context

But today I'm a different person, and I'm sure that this is the right decision. I already gave a spiel on the cmp PR, but lemme copy-paste my response for those that weren't following the issue or don't check their GitHub notifications:

EDIT: I was able to reproduce the issue with a simplified nvim-cmp init.vim - posted here: https://github.com/hrsh7th/nvim-cmp/issues/1728

You need to add nvim-cmp and cmp-nvim-lsp

one thing that always annoyed me is how the autocomplete window behaves. when the space below your current line isn't sufficient it just teleports above the line. i know you can set a custom menu direction but i'd much rather have it pop up in a consistent place that is below the current line. the other behavior i dislike is the sizing. it's as big as the longest function in the list which can make the window enormous, to the point where there's almost no place left for the docs window. there aren't really any docs in the example below but i imagine with the little space that is left it'll get troublesome for more verbose docs such as with rust. i'd like to somehow tell nvim-cmp to always pop up below the current line, no matter how long the list is and possibly limit the horizontal size. is that at all possible? i've looked through the nvim-cmp wiki but haven't found an adequate solution. does this go beyond nvim-cmp?

Update: This isn't currently supported by nvim-cmp (and in fact it has been a feature request for a bit) and so I did my best and opened a PR that implements it :)