👻 helix-ghost

Edit web browser textareas in Helix!

(Actually, it works with most text editors: kakoune, vim, nano, micro, etc.) 🙂

Overview

GhostText is a browser extension that lets you edit textarea content in your favorite editor instead of in the browser. This is good if, for example, you like the way your editor highlights and lints your code. Or maybe you like the way your editor spellchecks your markdown. I just like the simplicity of Helix and look for more places to use it, in general.

There are GhostText clients for lots of editors out there, but there wasn't one for Helix. So I made this one. Since Helix doesn't have a plug-in system, scripting, etc., this was a little tricky. And the result is more basic than some of the other, more complex editor plug-ins for GhostText. This tracks with how Helix's simplicity demands that you think simpler, which is the main thing I like about it. Because this client was designed to be simple, it should work equally well with other editors (vim, nano, micro, whatever).

Installation

1. Install the GhostText extension for Firefox or Chrome
2. Install the software in this repo by downloading the appropriate binary in the Releases tab and placing it in a folder that's in your PATH. Or just install it using Go by typing: go install github.com/rahji/helix-ghost@latest

Usage

Once it's installed, you can run this software by opening your terminal application and typing helix-ghost.

Open a web page that has a textarea and click the GhostText extension icon.

Back in that terminal window, you should see Helix running with the text from your browser. Every time you save (:w) in Helix, the browser's textarea will be updated to reflect what you've done in the editor.

When you quit Helix, the connection will be closed. The software continues running in your terminal, waiting for the next connection from your browser.

If you want to quit the helix-ghost server altogether, use Ctrl+C

Notes and Limitations

• This server assumes that your Helix command is hx, but you can change that by using the --editor= flag. You could also use a different editor command entirely, like vim
• There is also an http-port= flag but you shouldn't need it. If you change it, you'll need to also enter the same port number in the GhostText extension settings.
• Helix assumes the file is plain text. If you want to switch to something like Markdown or some programming language, you can use the helix command :set-language
• I've tested this in Windows and WSL (Ubuntu) and it works with both. Let me know if you try it with another OS.
• Only one textarea on the page can be edited at a time. You'll need to quit Helix if you want to edit another textarea.
• Since the GhostText protocol doesn't seem to provide a nice way of closing the connection, you'll briefly see a red error message appear when you quit Helix (which closes the connection).

Support

If this is useful for you, add a star in GitHub. Then please consider donating a few bucks to World Central Kitchen