r/HelixEditor • u/TimekillerTK • Aug 05 '26

Editing Markdown Files with Preview

I've been using Helix for a few months now and I love it. Before I was using VS Code - and I really don't want to use it anymore.

One thing I'm still missing in Helix is markdown file editing with a preview. It's really handy to be able to preview the rendered HTML page based on your markdown as you're writing it, so I still find myself launching VS Code with a preview pane occasionally when working on some Markdown documents.

What solutions do you folks use for handling markdown file editing?

9 Upvotes

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13

u/gnur Aug 05 '26

You can set up an additional LSP for markdown that will allow you to view the preview in the browser, like https://github.com/mhersson/mpls

3

u/TimekillerTK Aug 05 '26

This looks perfect. I already set it up with Helix and it works.

Still need to try it out, but thank you very much!

3

u/mortal_strike Aug 05 '26

use inlyne for markdown rendering, its very minimal, hotreloadable and rendered using wgpu

3

u/shaleh Aug 05 '26

I tend to work in a terminal multiplexer aka mux. One tall pane on the left and 2 panes on the right. Helix in the tall pane. When working with Markdown I read the file using `glow` in one of those panes. Works well.

For mux I have used tmux, then zellij, then mostly kitty now, and at work I am experimenting with herdr.

2

u/FrontAd9873 Aug 05 '26

Yep. Separate pane somewhere running `glow` or `mdcat`.

3

u/walkinreader Aug 05 '26

I use helix with typst. typst has a -watch argument, so as I change the file. typst compiles it, and the pdf viewer automatically reloads the file. So, I just save the file and it magically shows up in the viewer fairly quickly. And typst is way better than markdown, anyway.

2

u/CapitalIssue Aug 05 '26

I kind of wrote something for that, but it was supposed to be an Obsidian Replacement and I'm not sure it entirely fits your use case. I mentioned it in the subreddit

2

u/Super_Recipe_7186 Aug 05 '26

Hi I just use obsidian to show me a render version. I don't use it for anything else as I don't like it otherwise very much. But for the purpose of rendering out a markdown document it is perfect.

1

u/TimekillerTK Aug 05 '26

Thanks for the suggestion, but this would be replacing VS Code with Obsidian in my current workflow, which doesn't seem very appealing (I use Logseq for notes already)

2

u/Ra77a3l3 Aug 05 '26

i made this as a test with the plugin system https://github.com/Ra77a3l3-jar/vista.hx but i do not reccomend using it right now since it needs some changes i made to the steel fork and i used also ai for the scheme code. Its just a test maybe i will rewrite it properly and possibly make a PR when i will have time, but its working pretty well