Fallback to create new file in file picker

[unsecretised]

How feasible would it be to make the file picker be able to create new files as a fallback?
And ofc for typos you can pick what "mode" you want to trigger the file picker in?

I'm finding file creation really annoying in helix.

[Charlie284]

The current file picker cannot use an unmatched query as a new filename. It enumerates existing regular files and then fuzzy-filters that list (source), so the query is not treated as a path.

The built-in create-or-open workflow is:

:open path/to/file.rs

or the short form:

:o path/to/file.rs

If the path exists, Helix opens it. If it does not, Helix creates an empty buffer associated with that path (implementation). The file is not created on disk until :write, so a typo can still be abandoned safely. :open also has filename completion.

For a completely unnamed buffer, use :new, edit it, then :write path/to/file.rs. If the parent directories do not exist, :write! creates the necessary directories as well.

Adding file creation to the browsing UI is feasible, but it is not merged behavior today. PR #15204 proposes create/rename/delete actions in the file explorer, while the separate editable-directory proposal in PR #15220 was steered toward the future plugin system by a maintainer. So for now I would use :open as the explicit "open existing or create new buffer" mode rather than making a zero-match fuzzy query create a file.