Stories

zmax: a Helix fork with 12 scripting languages compiled in

Article lobste.rs

zmax: a Helix fork with 12 scripting languages compiled in

zmax forks Helix into a zero-configuration terminal IDE: LSP, a debugger, tree-sitter, PTY terminal, magit-style git, a hex editor, a 3-pane merge resolver, and nine keymap presets (spacemacs by default, plus vim, emacs, kakoune, micro, nano, cua and others), working on first launch with no plugin manager and no setup. MPL-2.0 like upstream; provenance is in ATTRIBUTION.md.

The part that isn’t just “Helix with more.” Twelve scripting interpreters are compiled into the binary as pure-Rust crates sharing one host API, with no FFI between them: elisp, vimscript, awk, zsh, ruby, php, python, node, tcl, R, and two of my own. They’re evaluated against the live buffer, and ~/.zmax/init.el and init.vim are sourced at startup.

That buys something beyond scripting. :xpipe filters a selection through a chain of them inside the process:

:xpipe awk '{print $2}' |> php 'echo strtoupper($stdin);' |> ruby 'stdin.reverse'

No fork, no execve, no pipe file descriptors — an N-stage chain is N function calls into interpreters already linked in, and the whole chain lands as one undo step. Stages are separated by |> because a bare | is live syntax in most of the twelve. The same trick drives the fuzzy picker: the fzf.vim commands (:Files, :Rg, :GFiles) run a finder in-process rather than exec’ing fzf, while still honoring $FZF_DEFAULT_OPTS, the user’s existing config, and the FZF_* variables preview commands read. The source command behind a picker is of course still a process; the picker isn’t.

Plugins. Helix ships no plugin system. zmax hosts native compiled Rust plugins — an ordinary cdylib loaded at runtime over a frozen versioned C ABI, registering typable :-commands and reading or editing the buffer through the host API. There’s a package manager over it: :zmax-native add owner/repo clones, builds, installs and loads; installs land in a content-addressed store SHA-256 pinned in installed.toml, and loading is by mmap so the library is paged in rather than copied.

On measurement, since “IDE parity” is the kind of claim that’s usually hand-waved. Coverage is tracked against the feature surface of Vim/Neovim, Emacs, Spacemacs, kakoune, vis, sam, ed, nvi, vile, mg, nano, micro, mcedit, ne, dte, three Neovim distributions, and JetBrains. Every inventory item is parsed from that tool’s own primary source — the Neovim runtime docs, the GNU Emacs manual indexes, kakoune’s doc/pages, vile’s cmdtbl, nano’s src/global.c, ne’s texinfo — never hand-written, so the denominator isn’t something I chose. The numerator is re-derived from zmax source on every run, and a mapping that points at non-existent code is flagged broken rather than counted. Numbers live in the generated report, not the README, specifically so they can’t go stale.

The obvious objection: this is a kitchen sink, and the binary carries twelve interpreters whether you use them or not. That’s deliberate — the thesis is that zero-config means everything ships in the box — but --no-default-features drops every interpreter crate from the dependency graph if you want a lean build.

brew install MenkeTechnologies/menketech/zmax, then zmax -g fetch && zmax -g build for grammars.

Discussion 0 comments · -5 points · menketechnologies · 3h
Open on Lobsters
Loading the discussion…

Domain filters

Stories from these domains are hidden from every list. Subdomains match too: blocking substack.com also hides danluu.substack.com. Type a domain, or paste a link to block its site, and press Enter.

New collection

Delete this collection?

About YAVCHN

YAVCHN is a reader for Hacker News and Lobsters, with articles and discussions in separate windows or Classic pages.

Created by Paul Parks and built with PUDL.

YAVCHN source code on GitHub

Privacy policy · Terms of use

Help

Keyboard

j / k
Move down and up the story list. The arrow keys scroll whatever has focus.
Enter
Read the marked story in the article reader.
[ / ]
Read the story above or below in the list, in the same article reader. Back returns to the story you came from.
p
Pin or unpin the marked story, which keeps it in Pinned.
n / N
Move to the next or previous top-level comment in the window in front.
c
Collapse or expand that comment.
f
Hide or show the story list.
Esc
Close a menu or this help.
Access key m
Go to the menu bar. Most browsers take it with Alt on Windows and Linux, and Safari with Control and Option.
?
Show this help.

Windows

Each story opens in a window holding its article above its discussion; drag the bar between them to share the room differently. A window can be moved by its title bar, resized from any edge, snapped to a half or a corner by dragging it there, maximised, or minimised to the bar at the foot of the page. Use Window > New reader window to open an empty reader, or Story > Open in new reader window to open another reader for the current article. Docked readers keep their articles when you select another story from the sidebar. Minimized readers can be restored and reused for their site. A window's Previous and Next buttons read up and down the list in the same window.

A link in a comment or an article to another Hacker News or Lobsters thread opens that thread in a window too. A link to a single HN comment opens the comment above its replies.

While a story's window is in front, the Story and Discussion menus in the menu bar hold its commands: pinning, Previous and Next story, sorting, collapsing every thread, jumping to the first new comment. Each window also remembers where you were in its article and discussion, so a reload, or Back to a story that Next took you past, finds your place again. Closing a window forgets it.

The whole arrangement lives in the address, so a bookmark or a shared link brings it back, and Back undoes the last change. Moving between Hacker News, Lobsters, their lists, Pinned and Find changes only the list, and leaves the windows open.

The list

The pin at the start of a row keeps the story in Pinned, and the cross at its end hides it. Pinned can be narrowed by words in the title, site or author, by source, and to the stories you haven't opened yet, and ordered by when you pinned them, by points or by comments; the filters are part of the address, so a filtered view can be bookmarked. Scroll past the end of the list to load more. Domain filters, in the View menu, hide every story from a site.

Collections are named lists of stories. Story > Add to collection files the story in front into one or more of them, and the Collections feed shows them all or one at a time; the menu that chooses collections also creates, renames, and deletes them. A note is your own text on a story. Choose Add note in a story's toolbar to write one; it saves as you type. Rows with a note carry the note mark, and the Notes feed lists every noted story and searches the text of your notes.

Browsing view

View > Windowed and View > Classic select the browsing view and save your default in this browser. Window view reuses a reader for each feed. Classic view opens stories and applets as pages. Open as a page is a one-off action that does not change your saved default. Use the Windowed selector to return an article to a window. Direct page links always open as pages.

Applets

The Applets menu in the menu bar holds three tools, each a window of its own. Replies to me takes your Hacker News user name and lists the replies to your last thirty comments and stories, checking again every three minutes while it is open, and marking what is new since you last marked them read. Look up a user opens a profile on Hacker News or Lobsters, with their submissions and recent comments, as a commenter's name in any discussion does; the bar at the top of a profile looks up someone else in the same window, and Back returns to the one before. Who is hiring? filters the posts of HN's monthly hiring threads by the words you type.

They read only what the sites publish to everyone, so none of them asks for a login, and your user name stays in this browser anonymously and is included in retained applet state when signed in.

Find

Find takes any link and lists every time it was submitted to Hacker News and Lobsters, so you can read each discussion of it.

About

YAVCHN never sees your Hacker News or Lobsters login. The discussion is fetched from each site's public API; to vote or reply, follow the link above the discussion, or the arrow beside a comment, to the source's own site. Without a YAVCHN account, your data stays in this browser. When signed in, pins, collections, notes, blocked domains, and retained reading state are stored with your account and synchronized across devices. Hidden stories and layout stay in this browser. The privacy policy has the details.

Open source: github.com/paulmooreparks/yavchn. Built with PUDL.