Testing Modern Text Editors

Recently, I have run into two new text editors that I wish to try in order to potentially replace Neovim. For starters, I currently use NeoViM, a terminal-based text editor, that I have had fully configured and have used for many years to do any sort of editing within my terminal, whether it be programming, journaling, or typesetting.

Kakoune

Kakoune is the first text editor I will mention, despite not having used it for long. Mainly, it was developed before Helix, and Helix is based off it, with some key design and philosophical changes.

Helix

Helix is another modern, modal terminal-based text editor. It was based off both ViM and Kakoune, although unlike Kakoune, it still has/uses a visual mode, for which Kakoune has completely gotten rid of.

Unlike NeoViM and Kakoune, Helix uses basic TOML configuration for its config files, this gives an advantage, and a con: the advantage being it is very easy for users not familiar with programming languages to configure and get up and running; the con being that it is nowhere near as extensible as NeoViM or other text editors that allow you to use programming languages for your configuration.

For example, this is the complete and only configuration file I have set up for Helix:

theme = "onedarker"

[editor]
line-number = "relative"
mouse = false
middle-click-paste = false
cursorline = true
bufferline = "multiple"
color-modes = true
insert-final-newline = false

[editor.cursor-shape]
insert = "bar"
normal = "block"
select = "underline"

[editor.file-picker]
hidden = false

[editor.indent-guides]
render = true

[editor.soft-wrap]
enable = true


Even with this setup, most of the options are personal preferences and the editor runs perfectly fine with an empty config.