Undoing change in insert mode does nothing when first opening the file

[joezak11]

Summary

using the following configuration

[keys.insert]
C-z = "undo"

editing a file without going to normal mode prints Already at oldest change if I go to normal mode and go back to insert mode I can undo

Reproduction Steps

I tried this:

1. hx
2. enter insert mode
3. type anything
4. press Ctrl-z

I expected this to happen:
to undo the changes
Instead, this happened:
I get Already at oldest change

Helix log

No response

Platform

Linux

Terminal Emulator

alacritty 0.8.0-dev (3ed0430)

Helix Version

helix 22.05-dev (fc61796)

[the-mikedavis]

This is expected behavior. In order to undo, helix needs an undo checkpoint. These are saved automatically by switching from insert to normal mode. There was a new command merged recently that alllows you to save a checkpoint manually in insert mode: #2115 (bound to C-s by default)

[joezak11]

I see. Are there any plans for changing that behavior? neovim works as expected, I'm not sure how they implement it, though. could be time based or event based with a debounse or something.

[the-mikedavis]

There's been some discussion about more granular or automatic undo checkpoints in insert mode based on a timeout or a number of words typed but many of us agree that it's better to be explicit about the checkpoints (i.e. use C-s or switch to normal mode) or else you end up having to hit u (or C-z in this case) an unpredictable number of times to go back to the last explicit checkpoint.

See #1583 (comment)