zsh-vi-mode VS helix-vim

And zsh-vi-mode

Thank you for your answer, I'm using zsh and zsh-vi-mode, and, at least in my experience, it works GREAT!

Here's a random endorsement: have you tried this improved vi-mode plugin for zsh? The built-in mode is good, but the plugin adds some of the commands that I missed. https://github.com/jeffreytse/zsh-vi-mode

My following recommendation does not address your original question, but you might be interested into it. Since a year or so I use a plugin for ZSH which enhances the vim like capabilities on the commandline: https://github.com/jeffreytse/zsh-vi-mode And additionally in normal mode vv will open up vim for editing this commandline and a :wq would go back with the updated line. Not using myself, but cool to have.

Vi mode was not enough for me, so I installed a ZSH plugin with extended Vim features: https://github.com/jeffreytse/zsh-vi-mode

Yeah, I can't imagine working without it. There's also a more feature-packed vi-mode (since the zsh vi-mode lacks some basic bindings).

I tried to re-learn from Vim to Helix but failed. No sure if this is a muscle memory problem or perhaps article is right about cons Kakoune-like approach for me. Even adapting with something https://github.com/LGUG2Z/helix-vim did not work. So if you like Helix it probably a good thing that you did not learn the vim at the time.

Not that they're inherently worse, just different - I'm perfectly happy with vim motions and relearning to type is pretty low on my list of priorities. Luckily there is a compatibility hack, not perfect but it's close enough: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/helix-vim

I want to like Helix, I really, really want to. It's lean, fast, polished, purely console based so it fits my workflows perfectly... but the almost-like-vim-but-not-really key bindings are a deal breaker. I just can't make the switch.

If Helix were completely different in this regard, like Emacs is, I could handle--and I know because I use both vim and Emacs regularly pretty fluently. But Helix is way too close to the vim keybindings to discern it from a memory muscle perspective. I use vim keybindings everywhere else (zsh, all readline-based apps via a setting in ~/.inputrc, VSCode), so getting used to slight differences in just one editor is extremely hard because I can't just drop all other apps.

I recently tried this: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/helix-vim which attempts to provide vim mappings to Helix. It's funny how the description in the page describes my progression almost 100%. And while it makes things slightly better, it's still not accurate enough to make this a non-issue.

https://github.com/LGUG2Z/helix-vim somebody on the internet has you covered

There is this configuration: https://github.com/LGUG2Z/helix-vim

This switches most keybinds to be vi-like.