Help with syntax highlighting

[pfr-dev]

I need some help getting syntax highlighting working. I'm not familiar with this tree-sitter business and really have no idea what I'm supposed to do. I think I need an idiots guide to setting syntax highlighting in Helix.

Thanks!

[archseer]

Can you give us some details (you didn't fill out the bug template)? What helix version? What programming language? What file are you trying to load? Are you using a package or installing from source?

[pfr-dev]

Can you give us some details (you didn't fill out the bug template)?

Mostly because it's not a bug, I just need some help

What helix version?

v0.5.0

What programming language? What file are you trying to load?

This confuses me coming from vim where you just enable syntax highlighting and that's it. I am not a programmer, I'm just a hobbyist who likes colorful code. I'm mostly editing dot-files and configs in C, some in rust and and a handful of common lisp. But I just want The Kitchen Sink syntax highlighting package that does it all.

Are you using a package or installing from source?

I installed form source as per the installation instructions.

Extra info:
OS - NetBSD
Built on rustc-1.56.1

edit: spelling

[archseer]

Yeah, Helix highlighting should also work out of the box, as long as you're using a language we support (currently any of the ones listed in https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/blob/master/languages.toml)

if you're not getting syntax highlighting for C or Rust files, did you follow the install steps:

Helix also needs its runtime files so make sure to copy or symlink the runtime/ directory into the config directory (for example ~/.config/helix/runtime on Linux/macOS). This location can be overriden via the HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable.

[pfr-dev]

Yeah, I've copied the runtime/ directory to ~/.config/helix/runtime yet I still don't get any highlighting. Not even in bash or sh scripts.

[kirawi]

Run Helix via hx -v on a file that's supposed to have syntax highlighting; what does it say in your log?

[pfr-dev]

I removed Helix and started from the beginning. It seems to have worked this time.

Cheers

[pfr-dev]

While most syntax highlighting is working now (including sh scripts), for some unknown reason my ~/.shrc does not have syntax highlighting. Is there any syntax highlighting for rc files?

[sudormrfbin]

Support for file detection from shebang line landed in master a while ago (#1001), so you'll have to either build from source or wait for v0.6.

[pfr-dev]

Support for file detection from shebang line landed in master a while ago (#1001), so you'll have to either build from source or wait for v0.6.

I did build from source, 11 days ago. Looks like those changes landed before I built helix

To be clear, my ~/.shrc does not begin with a shebang, the very first line is simply a comment # .shrc file for sh(1).

[sudormrfbin]

Ah you need at the very least a proper shebang line like #!/bin/sh for it to work, since helix has no other way of detecting file type.

[pfr-dev]

Ah you need at the very least a proper shebang line like #!/bin/sh for it to work, since helix has no other way of detecting file type.

I've added the shebang and it does work. I'm just a little unsure whether or not it'll have any unwanted consequences. Anyway, Closing again.
Cheers

[koonopek]

I have same problem :(
My setup is ssh with putty to linux machine and hx was cross compiled from macos :)
Maybe this is the cause?

[koonopek]

Okey found this in log file?
(Couldn paste screen shot)

ANy idea how to solve that?

[archseer]

Are you building on latest master? Grammars weren't cross-compiled correctly before this change https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/3137/files#diff-a51c059189ef3148ad3623783b405a650987fba714abf1b6c9343d86862c8dc1R323

[koonopek]

I wasn't, thanks for the information, I manage to fix it, by compliling on different machine with common architecture.

However, Im still not able to display colors properly when using tmux (I already tried everything from google search)

[akhildevelops]

TOML is in the list of supported of languages. Still I was unable to see any highlighting in my toml files.

I installed hx using Cargo and I can't see any app related files in my ~/.config/helix folder. Later I found the helix files are located in ~/tools/helix folder. Then I symlinked the ~/tools/helix folder to ~/.config/helix. Now syntax highlighting works.

[Lyreplus]

Same problem here. I've installed Helix from source on Arch Linux as the readme file says. I've also executed the command ln -s $PWD/runtime ~/.config/helix/runtime on my terminal, but nothing. The code analyzer works (I'm coding in Rust, in this case using rust-analyzer) but highlighting, text object and indent features don't work, as the command hx --health print. I've also executed "hx --grammar fetch" and "hx --grammar build", and everything is already built. Any ideas?

[archseer]

Why not use the helix-git AUR package that builds from source and sets everything up for you?

[Lyreplus]

Why not use the helix-git AUR package that builds from source and sets everything up for you?

yeah, you're right. It all works now, thanks

[beeb]

For anyone reading this and having the same problem as @Lyreplus above. For me what worked was to export a variable export HELIX_RUNTIME="$HOME/helix/runtime" pointing to the runtime folder inside the git repo that you cloned. It's important to not have a runtime folder inside the ~/.config/helix folder as well otherwise it didn't work for me. No hx -g fetch and hx -g build either otherwise there will be conflicting files.

[lBenevides]

@beeb Thanks!!! done that and just worked like magic!

[beeb]

@beeb Thanks!!! done that and just worked like magic!

Nice! Alternatively I think I later also got it working in the end by making a symlink inside .config/helix that points to the runtime folder inside the cloned repo, like indicates in the user instructions.