The Helix authors describe it as a "post-modern text editor," one that was heavily influenced by Neovim and Kakoune. Like Kakoune, Helix uses multiple selections as an editing primitive with an 'object verb' command syntax. Unlike Kakoune or Neovim, the editing interface and command syntax focus on being easy to reason about rather than accomplishing common tasks with a bare minimum of keystrokes. While most editors rely on a set of regular expressions to provide syntax highlighting, Helix goes a step further and integrates parsing of code into abstract syntax trees using the `tree-sitter` library. As a result, it can track local variables, indicate when nested code is incorrectly indented, and provide semantically-aware editing commands. Helix also has built-in support for language servers that can be leveraged to provide context-aware autocompletion, as-you-type code diagnostics, and actions for highlighted code blocks. The helix site provides executables for Windows, macOS, and Linux systems.
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