Ki modal editor - first impressions

Copy-pasting my comment in a converstion on lobste.rs titled Wonderful vi:

I will put another one in the ring: Ki

Ki is similar to vim in that it uses modal editing.

Its similar to helix in that:

1. It selects first, then acts on the selection.
2. It has first-class multi-cursor support
3. It aims to be low-config
4. It has built-in LSP support. Adding a new language is a matter of declaring it. (I added 2 on my own yesterday, within 2 hours of using Ki. I could never have dared do this with vim/neovim).

Its different from both vim and Helix in that it splits the mental model into:

1. selection mode;
2. movement;
3. action

such that:

1. A selection mode sets the current unit - column/character, word, line, syntax node, the latter two of which are semantic units derived from tree-sitter grammar.
2. Because selection unit is already configured, movements are reduced to hjkl.
3. Actions, like helix, then act on the current selection.

I think I made the explanation more complicated than the actual execution.

I’ve only been exploring it for a day. Navigation through syntax nodes is impressive, but also heavily reliant on the language’s tree-sitter grammar being decent. Also, I’m not sure how much of a leg up it is against helix’s LSP jump to symbol. But helix’s operations on syntax nodes surely feels like a second thought, when compared to Ki’s.

There are other goodies:

• Everything is a buffer. So, same key-bindings are used everywhere.
• It has a built-in file-tree explorer (using yaml!), which can be fuzzy-searched too.
• Thought-out keybindings. For example, choosing between editor and system clipboard is a matter of \ key. y or p copies or pastes to editor clipboard, while \y or \p copies or pastes to the system clipboard.