Files
zed/crates/vim
Finn Eitreimanddino 920a1293ff Fix switching between helix and vim modes to not require returning to non-modal in between (#51706)
* Update `Vim::register` to correctly re-activate when either `vim_mode`
  or `helix_mode` are enabled, when they were previously disabled.
* Update `settings_ui::page_data::keymap_page` such that, when enabling
  or disabling `vim_mode` or `helix_mode`, the other setting is
  disabled, in case it is set. This ensures that only one mode is
  enabled at a time, as it should be.
  
Closes #51704 

Release Notes:

- Fixed switching between vim and helix mode needing multiple calls to
  have an effect while an editor is already open
- Update Settings UI such that, enabling vim or helix mode, now disables
  the other if it was previously active

---------

Co-authored-by: dino <dinojoaocosta@gmail.com>
2026-03-24 18:59:59 +00:00
..

This contains the code for Zed's Vim emulation mode.

Vim mode in Zed is supposed to primarily "do what you expect": it mostly tries to copy vim exactly, but will use Zed-specific functionality when available to make things smoother. This means Zed will never be 100% vim compatible, but should be 100% vim familiar!

The backlog is maintained in the #vim channel notes.

Testing against Neovim

If you are making a change to make Zed's behavior more closely match vim/nvim, you can create a test using the NeovimBackedTestContext.

For example, the following test checks that Zed and Neovim have the same behavior when running * in visual mode:

#[gpui::test]
async fn test_visual_star_hash(cx: &mut gpui::TestAppContext) {
    let mut cx = NeovimBackedTestContext::new(cx).await;

    cx.set_shared_state("ˇa.c. abcd a.c. abcd").await;
    cx.simulate_shared_keystrokes(["v", "3", "l", "*"]).await;
    cx.assert_shared_state("a.c. abcd ˇa.c. abcd").await;
}

To keep CI runs fast, by default the neovim tests use a cached JSON file that records what neovim did (see crates/vim/test_data), but while developing this test you'll need to run it with the neovim flag enabled:

cargo test -p vim --features neovim test_visual_star_hash

This will run your keystrokes against a headless neovim and cache the results in the test_data directory. Note that neovim must be installed and reachable on your $PATH in order to run the feature.

Testing zed-only behavior

Zed does more than vim/neovim in their default modes. The VimTestContext can be used instead. This lets you test integration with the language server and other parts of zed's UI that don't have a NeoVim equivalent.