I get the default Helix behavior instead of evil-helix behavior

[antoyo]

Summary

Let's continue the discussion from Reddit.

It seems I totally get the behavior of Helix instead of evil-helix.

Doing v shows SEL and I have the purple color scheme by default.

I compiled with cargo build --release and I run with ./target/release/hx.
I also tried cargo install --path helix-term --locked which seems the way to build helix from source and which hx returns /home/user/.cargo/bin/hx.
hx --version returns helix 24.3 (d969d507).

Here's the start of the output of hx --health:

Config file: default
Language file: default
Log file: /home/user/.cache/helix/helix.log
Runtime directories: /home/user/.config/helix/runtime;/home/user/.cargo/bin/runtime
Runtime directory does not exist: /home/user/.config/helix/runtime
Runtime directory does not exist: /home/user/.cargo/bin/runtime
Clipboard provider: xclip
System clipboard provider: xclip

Reproduction Steps

I tried this:

1. cargo run --release

I expected this to happen:
Have vim keybindings.

Instead, this happened:
I have the helix keybindings and the purple background.

Helix log

~/.cache/helix/helix.log

2023-05-23T08:14:16.620 helix_view::editor [ERROR] Failed to initialize the LSP for `source.toml` { cannot find binary path }
2023-05-23T12:15:55.583 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] err <- "[ERROR rust_analyzer::main_loop] flycheck 0: File with cargo diagnostic not found in VFS: file not found: /home/user/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-2023-03-02-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/src/rust/library/core/src/macros/mod.rs\n"
2023-05-23T12:15:55.583 helix_lsp::transport [ERROR] err <- "[ERROR rust_analyzer::main_loop] flycheck 0: File with cargo diagnostic not found in VFS: file not found: /home/user/.rustup/toolchains/nightly-2023-03-02-x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu/lib/rustlib/src/rust/library/core/src/macros/mod.rs\n"
2023-05-23T12:16:04.078 helix_view::editor [ERROR] Failed to initialize the LSP for `source.toml` { cannot find binary path }

Platform

Linux

Terminal Emulator

Alacritty

Installation Method

From source

Helix Version

helix 24.3 (d969d50)

[antoyo]

It seems that adding an empty config file ~/.config/helix/config.toml makes the keybinding d$ work.
It still have the purple background, but I do now see VIS when pressing V.

I also see some other keybindings that create a selection, so I'll open issues for those.

[usagi-flow]

Thank you very much for the detailed issue! It helped me find an issue with the loading of the default configuration (i.e. when no user configuration could be found).
I implemented a (still undocumented) configuration option, editor.evil, to allow users to deactivate the evil keybindings through configuration, instead of having to rely on a different build. That option is not defaulting to true when the editor starts without user configuration.