Key Remapping

One-way key remapping is temporarily supported via a simple TOML configuration file. (More powerful solutions such as rebinding via commands will be available in the feature).

To remap keys, write a config.toml file in your helix configuration directory (default ~/.config/helix in Linux systems) with a structure like this:

# At most one section each of 'keys.normal', 'keys.insert' and 'keys.select'
[keys.normal]
a = "move_char_left" # Maps the 'a' key to the move_char_left command
w = "move_line_up" # Maps the 'w' key move_line_up
C-S-esc = "select_line" # Maps Control-Shift-Escape to select_line

[keys.insert]
A-x = "normal_mode" # Maps Alt-X to enter normal mode

Control, Shift and Alt modifiers are encoded respectively with the prefixes C-, S- and A-. Special keys are encoded as follows:

• Backspace => "backspace"
• Space => "space"
• Return/Enter => "ret"
• < => "lt"
• > => "gt"
• + => "plus"
• - => "minus"
• ; => "semicolon"
• % => "percent"
• Left => "left"
• Right => "right"
• Up => "up"
• Home => "home"
• End => "end"
• Page Up => "pageup"
• Page Down => "pagedown"
• Tab => "tab"
• Back Tab => "backtab"
• Delete => "del"
• Insert => "ins"
• Null => "null"
• Escape => "esc"

Commands can be found in the source code at ../../helix-term/src/commands.rs