What's your approach to open-file navigation?

[edwardloveall]

I'm coming to helix (and really enjoying it) from gui editors similar to TextMate/Atom/Nova. My normal approach when working on a codebase is to open up several files in tabs. I rearrange them to make it quick to move between whatever set of files I'm working on. I'm struggling to find a similar workflow in helix and I'm curious to learn about what others do.

The best I've got so far is to have multiple terminal tabs running helix. I use goto_next_buffer and goto_previous_buffer sometimes, but I can't rearrange them so I start opening new terminal tabs for those files. It works, but gets messy because the same files get opened in different tabs. The buffer pickers (changed_file_picker, buffer_picker) are great but still not as nice as a single action to flip between adjacent, rearrangeable tabs.

I'm not usually productive with splits, and can easily have more than 6 files open at once, which would be too many splits anyway. Is the answer to use a terminal multiplexer like tmux? I have to admit it sounds a bit overwhelming to juggle another environment (terminal, helix, & multiplexer).

I'd love know if you've got something you think will fit my existing workflow, but also want to hear how you manage multiple, open files. I'm at open to changing my approach, and would love to be inspired by something that works for you.

[j1wilmot]

Is the answer to use a terminal multiplexer like tmux?

Using the buffer pickers or a multiplexer like tmux are what first comes to mind for your use case.

#2295 discusses tab functionality and there may be some other suggestions there on alternative approaches.

Using tmux is how I handle similar use cases. Tmux provides a lot of flexibility for managing things. I'll often have different tmux sessions for different projects / code bases and then multiple tmux windows / panes per project to focus on different parts of the project.

Perhaps multiple tmux windows running helix to focus on different parts of the code base would work for you? That would give you a tab-like interface (although outside of your text editor). I'd certainly encourage giving tmux a try to see if it can help here - it's a great tool in the toolbox for workflows like this.

[edwardloveall]

Thanks! Seeing #2295 is great, and there are some other good examples in there. And thanks also for the tmux encouragement. I may just try it!