Yazelix v4: A true sidebar opens files in a helix buffer!

Overview

Yazelix integrates yazi, zellij and helix, hence the name, get it?

• Zellij orchestrates everything, with yazi as a sidebar and helix as the editor
• You can open and close the sidebar by switching zellij layouts (press alt ] and alt [)
  • Or if you only got one pane open, make it fullscreen (ctrl p + f or alt f )
• Every keybinding from zellij that conflicts with helix is remapped (see them at the bottom)
• Helix is called when you hit enter on a file in the "sidebar"
  • If helix is already open, in a pane next to the sidebar, it will open in a new buffer on that pane (magic)
• This project holds my config files for zellij and yazi, almost like a plugin or something
  • But it's just some config files with a bit of shell scripting!

Preview

Improvements of the v4 over v3

• ROUNDED CORNERS
• A wish come true: when you hit enter in a file or folder in yazi, if helix is open in a pane next to yazi, it will open in a helix buffer
  • All it took was some shell scripting magic...
  • it will also change your working dir, so when you press SPACE f you open the picker in that folder you're actually in
• New-tab layout has improved. Now new panes are just yazi in a 100% width pane, working sort of like a picker.
  • You just open a file or folder from yazi and it goes to it's proper place as a sidebar to the right
• Added a dedicate kb to make panes full screen alt f
• The repo was previously called zellij so people could just clone it in their .config folder directly, but this just sounded off.
  • The project's name is yazelix, not zellij, after all. So now the repo name is yazelix the way god intended
  • Take a look at the new instructions to set it up just below!

Instructions to set it up

1. Make sure yazi, zellij and helix are installed and in your path
2. Just clone this repo in your ~/.config dir
3. Set this command to run on your terminal startup (I prefer never leaving zellij):

zellij -l welcome --config-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij options --layout-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij/layouts

or if you don't like the welcome screen:

zellij -l ~/.config/yazelix/zellij/layouts/yazelix --config-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij 

or if you need to run zellij from your shell because it sets your environment variables (that's what I do and recommend)

nu -c "zellij -l welcome --config-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij options --layout-dir ~/.config/yazelix/zellij/layouts" 

(this is with nushell, but should be similar for zsh etc)

• My alacritty files are here if you'd like to take a look or mercilessly copy them
• If you like to run zellij on demand, then just run the command once and your shell should autocomplete the command after the first time (good shells like nushell do that)

4. Optional: Using zoxide enhances the yazelix experience ten-fold, let me tell ya... and it integrates with yazi

That's it, and feel free to open issues and PRs 😉

Why use this project?

• This project is relatively simple to understand, the inner workings and all. Just a bit shell scripting magic, but mostly config files
• Easy to configure and make it yours
• I daily drive this, and will change it according to my needs, keeping it updated and improving it
• Zero conflict keybindings, very powerful sidebar (learning yazi is a process, but you can do very cool stuff)

Possible Improvements

• Yazelix will only detect helix if it's adjacent to the sidebar. A minor thing.
• When you open a new tab, yazi opens as single pane taking all space
  • But it does not show the parents and preview columns, it only shows the current dir column
  • To address this I would have to reopen yazi with a different config?
• The opening of files in a helix buffer implementation works but feels like a workaround. But it does not matter much. Helix will get a plugin system and then a file tree plugin probably between the beginning and middle of 2025 anyaways..

Keybinding remaps

New Zellij Keybinding	Previous Keybinding	Helix Action that uses that previous key	Zellij Action remaped
Ctrl e	Ctrl o	jump_backward	SwitchToMode "Session"
Ctrl y	Ctrl s	save_selection	SwitchToMode "Scroll"
Alt w	Alt i	shrink_selection	MoveTab "Left"
Alt q	Alt o	expand_selection	MoveTab "Right"
Alt m	Alt n	select_next_sibling	NewPane
Alt 2	Ctrl b	move_page_up	SwitchToMode "Tmux"

If you find a conflict, please open an issue. Keep in mind, though, that compatibility with tmux mode is not a goal of this project.

Details: Base Layout

The initial layout includes one usable pane (actually 4, counting the tab-bar, status-bar and sidebar):

• Tab-bar at the top
• Status-bar at the bottom
• Yazi pane (20% width) acting as a sidebar on the left
• Empty pane on the right

Notes

• You can add more swap layouts as needed, using the KDL files in layouts.
• I recommend running zellij from your shell (nu -c "zellij -l welcome" for nushell).
  • This way you can load your enviroment variables like EDITOR and HELIX_RUNTIME
• I recommend using alacritty as your terminal
  • because it's a "dumb" terminal, it has no panes, no tabs. This means less keybindings conflicts to worry about, less feature overlap
  • very performant
  • but I do want to explore more modern options, so long as they have a "plain mode", like this
  • you can check out my alacritty files here (they include all alacritty themes)
• Use nushell, it's a great shell, it's fast and beautiful and a proper programming language. Why wouldn't you?
• If you test this with nvim and it works, let me know (see the issue here)
• Special thanks to yazi's, zellij's and helix's contributors/maintainers!

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