Hover page up down hint

[pickfire]

Currently when hover, there is a box. It can be scrolled down but there are two issues

• it is not cleared when it can be scroll up or down
• it is not discoverable for new users that ctrl-u and ctrl-d is used to scroll the hover box

One idea I have is that we draw ctrl-u text if it can be scrolled up and ctrl-d text if it can be scrolled down along the border of the box, that way we can reuse the existing border space while making it clear to users when it can be scrolled as well as being beginner friendly. Example,

+--------------------+
| ...                |
+------------ ctrl-d +

[archseer]

We can just render a scrollbar, like we do for the menu.

[pickfire]

We can render a scrollbar but user is likely to not know how to scroll up and down. Not sure about the rest but I don't know about the key to scroll until I saw someone mentioned it.

[sudormrfbin]

We could show a line Ctrl-d to scroll down, Ctrl-u to scroll up in the status message area (similar to Recording to {register} message shown when recording a macro).

[archseer]

We can render a scrollbar but user is likely to not know how to scroll up and down. Not sure about the rest but I don't know about the key to scroll until I saw someone mentioned it.

I think it's predictable since we also use those keys in the picker, but we don't point them out anywhere except in the docs. Or how i enters insert mode, but there's no documentation text on screen in normal mode to point that out :P

A scrollbar would make it at least a bit more obvious that scrolling is possible.

We could show a line Ctrl-d to scroll down, Ctrl-u to scroll up in the status message area (similar to Recording to {register} message shown when recording a macro).

Yeah that could work

[Jlll1]

We could show a line Ctrl-d to scroll down, Ctrl-u to scroll up in the status message area (similar to Recording to {register} message shown when recording a macro).

Yeah that could work

So, do we want to do that? I think a scrollbar would be sufficient.

[sheyll]

We could show a line Ctrl-d to scroll down, Ctrl-u to scroll up in the status message area (similar to Recording to {register} message shown when recording a macro).

Yeah that could work

So, do we want to do that? I think a scrollbar would be sufficient.

As a new Helix user I would really prefer at least the status area message.

But broadening the scope a bit: Helix seems to have this UX idiom of showing pop-ups guiding the user.

For example when pressing Space a pop-up appears with what keys a user can now press to complete a command sequence.

That is really helpful for me. It would be nice if additionally hints like the keys to scroll the pop-up could be displayed in a dedicated message area distinct from the actual message area, which might contain other, more useful information.

A separate guide/hint area could also be made configurable, so experienced users can disable them.

[sheyll]

... also this could be solved by a bunch of "Did You Know?" style hint message displayed in the message area on start-up.

[pickfire]

... also this could be solved by a bunch of "Did You Know?" style hint message displayed in the message area on start-up.

That works but it gets heavier and heavier to the point that no one reads it next time, something like infobox which shows up where it needs to be is better.

So, do we want to do that? I think a scrollbar would be sufficient.

Scrollbar will look nicer, but what is the point if it is there and user don't know how to scroll it? Maybe we can hide it under a beginner flag or show it inside tutorial, if anything vim and kak both don't have this so people probably won't know how to do it without searching through the docs.

[willparsons]

Maybe we can hide it under a beginner flag

I like the idea of an opt-out extra info system that would help users learn the keybinds, then they can disable this feature when they don't need it anymore.