Smart tab (aka tabout)

[dead10ck]

This adds new commands that will traverse up to the parent tree-sitter node and move to either the beginning or the end. It also adds an optional feature I've called "smart tab" which will run the latter command when tab is pressed, unless the cursor is preceded only by whitespace, in which case it will insert a tab as normal. With the default bindings, S-tab can be pressed to explicitly only insert a tab. This can be used to emulate a tabout behavior.

Some things I'm unsure about in the approach:

• In the menu, the tab key is bound to cycling through menu items. This cuts the usefulness of this feature because when the auto complete menu pops up, it doesn't work any more. To get around this, I added a config option to ignore the tab key in the menu component, but this feels a little bit hacky to me. I'm not really sure what else to do though.
• Key mappings. Really not sure what to bind these to in the default mappings. Personally I've found it so useful that I've bound the new movement commands to tab in normal mode as well, although due to the terminal conflict with C-i, this would clearly be a controversial choice in the default bindings.

This change is based on top of #4425 and #6156

[dead10ck]

Ok I think I got all the comments 🙂

[dpc]

For reference:

[keys.normal]
tab = "move_parent_node_end"
S-tab = "move_parent_node_start"

[editor.smart-tab]
enable = true

[keys.insert]
S-tab = "move_parent_node_start"

[keys.select]
tab = "extend_parent_node_end"
S-tab = "extend_parent_node_start"

BTW. I might have missed it, but it might be worthwhile documenting the more elaborated setup somewhere in the docs. And also having to customize 5 bindings to set it up feels kind of ... Vimish. I wish there was something like editor.smart-tab.enable = "full" or something that would do it automatically.

[David-Else]

@dpc I have:

[keys.normal]
"tab" = "expand_selection"
"S-tab" = "shrink_selection"

No need for any extra select mode bindings as it selects already. I am not sure about your editor.smart-tab.enable = "full" idea.

[dpc]

No need for any extra select mode bindings as it selects already.

How does it work in selection mode? (I haven't tried, but I'm curious what exactly is responsible for it working, more than the effect)

I have this feature enabled and configured since it was a PR, so I might have missed something, but when I google and look through the docs I only find https://docs.helix-editor.com/master/configuration.html#editorsmart-tab-section that doesn't explain (or advertise) this feature much at all, and doesn't seem to enable any extra binding that made a big difference when I was first trying it out.

[dead10ck]

@dpc I have:

[keys.normal]
"tab" = "expand_selection"
"S-tab" = "shrink_selection"

No need for any extra select mode bindings as it selects already. I am not sure about your editor.smart-tab.enable = "full" idea.

Not really sure what this has to do with @dpc 's question. These bindings aren't for smart tab, and the bindings they're asking about aren't in the default key map.

@dpc the reason this isn't in the default key map is because it needs a terminal with support for the Kitty keyboard protocol to work, and we don't want to require that in the default bindings.

But smart tab is enabled by default, so you don't need that part.

[dead10ck]

editor.smart-tab.enable = "full"

We've also been disinclined to make configuration "kits" like this because they require special case logic and have confusing semantics with respect to overrides.

[dpc]

@dpc the reason this isn't in the default key map is because it needs a terminal with support for the Kitty keyboard protocol to work, and we don't want to require that in the default bindings.

I'm confused - seems to me like all I'm binding is tab and S-tab. Is it the S-tab being not a valid keycode+modifier combo or something?

Anyhow, would it make sense to expand https://docs.helix-editor.com/master/configuration.html#editorsmart-tab-section with recommended settings or something? Hmmm... are even the settings i have recommended? :D . I just copied them from some previous comment in the past and it worked great.

[dead10ck]

I'm confused - seems to me like all I'm binding is tab and S-tab. Is it the S-tab being not a valid keycode+modifier combo or something?

Yeah, in standard terminals, Shift + Tab does not work. Also, tab is ambiguous with Ctrl-i, which is the binding for going forward in the jump history, so binding to tab in normal mode overwrites that binding.

Anyhow, would it make sense to expand https://docs.helix-editor.com/master/configuration.html#editorsmart-tab-section with recommended settings or something? Hmmm... are even the settings i have recommended? :D . I just copied them from some previous comment in the past and it worked great.

Sure, we'd appreciate a PR 🙂

[dpc]

@dead10ck #9762 , happy to tweak to improve.