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One of my favorite people talking about my single favorite tool of the past 3+ years. Up there with (above, really) zellij and helix for changing my daily life.



Helix, the editor? How would you pitch it?

Zellij looks powerful but also a bit too complex, following the "kitchen sink" school of design :-). No biggie but its name is too close to IntelliJ imho. What kind of workflow do you use with it?

I used tmux a bit back in the day, but these days I feel like good old tabs and app windows cover my needs. When I want to multiplex processes in a single window, I reach for Overmind. [1]

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1: https://github.com/DarthSim/overmind


I don't know what you find complex about Zellij, as I haven't used it extensively, but the few times I've used it, the UI was eminently self-describing, I managed to do everything I've needed to do within a minute of first launching it.

Is there more advanced stuff that's more complex that I just haven't seen?


> Is there more advanced stuff that's more complex that I just haven't seen?

Yes? I mean, it even has a system to install plugins made with WASM, from what I saw in the docs. I guess you could just use the basics and be okay with it.

For me, after years of tinkering with apps like Vim, Emacs, and AwesomeWM [1], I've developed a bit of PTSD over the amount of time these kinds of tools can take to configure and master [2]. Zellij feels like it belongs in this category of tools, and perhaps I'm overreacting or flinching. :-)

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1: https://awesomewm.org/

2: I've benefitted a lot from being able to use vim key bindings with extensions in apps like VS Code and emacs key bindings on places and I'm somewhat glad I spent the time, though.


Those things are optional, though. You can just use the basics and ignore the rest.


    > Helix, the editor? How would you pitch it?
Not the OP, but Helix is a minimal fuss modal editor with sensible defaults. My config is maybe five lines? I say "maybe" because I haven't looked at it I first wrote it. And I think I'd probably be just fine with no config.


Sensible defaults but also out of the box features you only get in vim by finding and configuring external plugins (fuzzy file picker, LSP integration, multi-cursor editing, inline keymapping help).

Cons: no session save, good Helix keybindings not available in other tools so confusing to switch between vim/hx mental models when in colab/vscode, no AI-assistants since no plugin system yet.


nice to see zellij+helix combo users out there. Helix been my fav editor for like a year already, zellij is also a daily driver, and now i'm learning jj :P


Do you use nixos? ;)


nah I'm on wsl




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