[Proposal] Buitin support for `Integrated Terminal`

[hh9527]

Nowadays, I switch to helix + Zellij (a modern tmux alternative) + Alacritty, the combo are very powerful.

But sometimes, I miss the time when I was using vscode (with vim extension).
The Integrated Terminal feature is very useful.

What if we got an Integrated Terminal feature inside helix?

• Unconflicted key combo (think about this: ctrl-r/ctrl-n both used in zellij & helix
• Unified pane/tab resize & other management functions
• Share same clipboard
• Easy history management of command line
• Persistentable pane layout (via $workspace/.helix/layout-config)

[David-Else]

Seems like a lot of effort for little gain. Surely it is the job of your terminal to be your terminal? Adding another terminal inside Helix seems a bit much. If your terminal software has Window management and tabs (like kitty) then you can do what you want? In kitty I just write little bash scripts to open workspaces setup how I want them.

I think I am the wrong audience for this, I tried tmux for a while and hated it, seems like a pointless idea. Remembering SSH sessions was cool, but why not just use a better terminal that does what you want? The author of Kitty has some good points on tmux and clones kovidgoyal/kitty#391 (comment)

Sorry to sound negative, if people want it then go for it! I just thought I would chime in with my personal opinion, people will have different views I am sure.

[andreytkachenko]

Neovim has integrated terminal and it is super useful to me both in toggle and float modes. It seems to me a good approach is not depend on some GUI terminal application (like kitty) and have everything you got used to have and do in any terminal emulator.

[hh9527]

Neovim has integrated terminal and it is super useful to me both in toggle and float modes. It seems to me a good approach is not depend on some GUI terminal application (like kitty) and have everything you got used to have and do in any terminal emulator.

Yes, I do agree. I want integrated terminal too.

and @David-Else somehow, I agree with you about terminal multiplexer is hacky, so I don't want a tmux, nor zellij, I need an integrated terminal to play a role to support multi-pane/tab inside helix.

[kirawi]

This was discussed in the past on Matrix and there seems to be a desire to implement it, but it's pretty complicated and would take a lot of work.

[archseer]

A fully functioning xterm environment is a lot of work and slightly inefficient as pointed out by the comment above, we need to re-parse all possible terminal escape sequences and reinterpret them (https://github.com/alacritty/vte can help but that's just the parsing bits).

You're essentially building a virtual terminal that renders to a part of the application. It would be about as much work as rebuilding tmux/zellij in helix.

I'd be interested in a proposal/experiment that implements this but I don't intend to work on this feature any time soon: personally I just always use tmux so I don't have a lot of motivation to focus on this.

[andreytkachenko]

There is implemented terminal which can be included (with some code reduction, like vi mode etc.) - https://github.com/alacritty/alacritty/tree/master/alacritty_terminal

[joegm]

This would probably be quick to be made as a plugin, whenever plugin support is complete. It'd be a reasonable compromise; keeping the core from bloat whilst the people that really want it can just install it.

[workingj]

maybe look in to guake (linux) and conemu (win), those are configurable as drop down (quake style) consoles, hidden and only a shortcut away. following you to the active workspace and your cursor with multiple displays.
even working well with i3
quite awesome dev tools in my opinion :>
Edit:
forgot to mention split views and tabs..

[i3elj]

I have to say that what made me happy about helix was it's non-bloated build. Maybe adding a built-in terminal it's a bit too much. I understand that this feature is useful, but I agree with @David-Else

Surely it is the job of your terminal to be your terminal? Adding another terminal inside Helix seems a bit much.

I just wanted to leave my comment here for you guys think about

[hh9527]

If helix could work in client-server mode, each win/pane (include terminal) is a standalone client/process, share same server instance, same lsp server, same clipboard, and can communicate/cooperate with window manager(eg. wezterm) to provide interaction functions (eg. jumping to file, switching pane/tab). That would make sense, and no need for built-in terminals.

[adamkpickering]

I would really like this feature. This is the only thing that is keeping me from switching from neovim to helix.

I understand the argument that there are other tools that can be used to get helix and a terminal in the same window, but in different panes. This is very "Unix philosophy" thinking, and generally I'm a fan of it.

However, I want a setup that I can take to any OS, including config files, without having to worry about other tooling (as much as possible, since obviously LSP servers etc need to be installed separately). Recently I have had to do some dev work on Windows, and it has been impossible to bring the tmux + nvim setup I usually use on Linux to this environment. I have ended up setting neovim up with a toggle-able integrated terminal to fit this use case.

Also, an integrated terminal would be helpful once helix has a graphical mode. Without this, the user is left switching windows in order to get to a terminal - that seems like a bad user experience to me.