yazelix

Yazelix v5

Overview

Yazelix integrates yazi, zellij and helix, hence the name, get it?

• Zellij orchestrates everything, with yazi as a sidebar and helix as the editor
• You can open and close the sidebar by switching zellij layouts (press alt ] and alt [)
  • Or if you only got one pane open, make it fullscreen (ctrl p + f or alt f)
• Every keybinding from zellij that conflicts with helix is remapped (see them at the bottom)
• When you hit enter on a file/folder in the "sidebar" the following things happen:
  • If helix is already open, in a pane next to the sidebar, it will open that file/folder in a new buffer on that pane (magic)
  • If helix is not open, it will cd into the folder of the file (or the folder itself), and then open it in helix
  • Note: It is highly recommended that you let the shell script execute in peace, so during these milliseconds don't move around
• This project holds my config files for zellij and yazi, almost like a plugin or something
  • But it's just some config files with a bit of shell scripting!

Preview

Improvements of v5 over v4.1

• Now when you open a new pane besides the sidebar pane, it will stack by default, focusing on full panes, instead of splits
• Change zellij tab name automatically to the dir from the file you open from yazi
  • The two changes above allow you to focus much more on using a tab per project! So that every tab has a dir of their own.
  • This helps you to visually and mentally know what each tab is doing.
• Now if you want to open a split, you can still do so like this:
  • Type ctrl p then r for a split to the right
  • Type ctrl p then d for a split in the "down" direction
• New rule IMPORTANT: to open a file from yazi into an existing yazelix buffer, the hx plane has to be the topmost of the stack (or a single pane with no stack), otherwise it will open a new helix instance
  • If your helix pane is not the topmost, just press ctrl h and move it up with k
• Important fix: Remapped keybindings were previously lost when attaching to a session or ressurrecting
• Important fix: #17 Failed to check if the command running in the current pane is helix
• fix: re-added move tab bindings. They were removed previously and now they work on tab mode
• Added a license

Instructions to set it up

1. Make sure yazi, zellij, helix, and nushell are installed and in your path

2. Just clone this repo in your ~/.config dir

3. Configure WezTerm:
   a. Create or open your ~/.wezterm.lua file
   b. Add the following content:

   -- Pull in the wezterm API
   local wezterm = require 'wezterm'
   -- This will hold the configuration.
   local config = wezterm.config_builder()
   -- This is where you actually apply your config choices
   -- For example, changing the color scheme:
   config.color_scheme = 'Abernathy'
   -- Spawn a nushell shell in login mode
   config.default_prog = { 'nu', '-c', "zellij -l welcome --config-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij options --layout-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij/layouts" }
   -- Others
   config.hide_tab_bar_if_only_one_tab = true
   config.window_decorations = "NONE"
   -- and finally, return the configuration to wezterm
   return config

Notes:

• For extra configuration, visit: https://wezfurlong.org/wezterm/config/files.html
• If you use another shell, you have to configure it to run something like nu -c "zellij -l welcome --config-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij options --layout-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij/layouts" on startup
  • or zellij -l welcome --config-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij options --layout-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij/layout (but you still need nu anyways)
  • Another option, if you wish, run this command manually every time you open yazelix
  • The recommended shell is Wezterm though. More on that in the Notes section below

4. Optional: Using zoxide enhances the yazelix experience ten-fold, let me tell ya... and it integrates with yazi

That's it, and feel free to open issues and PRs

Why use this project?

• This project is relatively simple to understand, the inner workings and all. Just a bit of shell scripting magic, but mostly config files
• Easy to configure and make it yours
• I daily drive this, and will change it according to my needs, keeping it updated and improving it
• Zero conflict keybindings, very powerful sidebar (learning yazi is a process, but you can do very cool stuff)

Troubleshooting

• If it's not working, try upgrading yazi and zellij to the latest version

Possible Improvements

• Yazelix will only detect helix if it's adjacent to the sidebar. A minor thing.
• When you open a new tab, yazi opens as single pane taking all space
  • But it does not show the parents and preview columns, it only shows the current dir column
  • To address this I would have to reopen yazi with a different config?

Keybinding remaps

New Zellij Keybinding	Previous Keybinding	Helix Action that uses that previous key	Zellij Action remapped
Ctrl e	Ctrl o	jump_backward	SwitchToMode "Session"
Ctrl y	Ctrl s	save_selection	SwitchToMode "Scroll"
Alt w	Alt i	shrink_selection	MoveTab "Left"
Alt q	Alt o	expand_selection	MoveTab "Right"
Alt m	Alt n	select_next_sibling	NewPane
Alt 2	Ctrl b	move_page_up	SwitchToMode "Tmux"

If you find a conflict, please open an issue. Keep in mind, though, that compatibility with tmux mode is not a goal of this project.

Discoverability of keybindings

• zellij: zellij is great at this, works out of the box, you'll visually see all the keybindings in the status-bar
• helix: helix is the same honestly
• yazi: There is only one keybinding to remember: ~ This shows all keybindings and commands (press alt f to make the yazi pane fullscreen)
• nushell: you can run tutor on nushell, you can read the https://www.nushell.sh/book/, you can run help commands | find regex (if you want to learn about regex for example, but could be anything)
  • well, I do use ctrl r a lot in nushell, it opens a interactive history search

Keybindings tips

• Zellij: Type alt f to make your pane fullscreen (and back)
• Zellij: Type ctrl p then r for a split to the right
• Zellij: Type ctrl p then d for a split in the "down" direction
• Yazi: Type z to use zoxide (fuzzy find to known paths)
• Yazi: Type Z to use fzf (fuzzy find to unknown paths)
• Yazi: Type SPACE to select files
• Yazi: Type y to yank and Y to unyank (cancels the copy)
• Yazi: Type x to cut and X to uncut (cancels the cut)
• Yazi: Type a to add a file (filename.ext) or a folder (foldername/)

Tips

• You can add more swap layouts as needed, using the KDL files in layouts.
• I recommend using wezterm as your terminal
  • because it can be configured to remove its native tabs, very extensible, including its keybindings (haven't found a conflict yet)
  • very performant
• If you test this with nvim and it works, let me know (see the issue here)
• Special thanks to yazi's, zellij's and helix's contributors/maintainers!
• Yazi's author graciously contributed some lua code to make yazi's status bar look awesome in the small width of a sidebar
  • Thanks for that!
• If you accidentaly close the sidebar, you can get it back with env YAZI_CONFIG_HOME=~/.config/yazelix/yazi/sidebar yazi

Im lost, it's too much information

In this case, learn how to use zellij on it's own first. And then optionally yazi. And then re-read the readme.

Contributing to Yazelix

See here in contributing

Similar projects

• File tree picker in Helix with Zellij
  • Yazi can be used as a file picker to browse and open file(s) in your current Helix instance (running in a Zellij session)