Move default comment toggle binding to pound

[EpocSquadron]

This is a common rebind in both the helix and kakoune community. Some reasons this is desirable:

• Pound is a common symbol for commenting in many languages
• Pound is not bound to anything else, and it is not obvious what else it would be bound to
• C-c should really be reserved for cancelling subshells from :sh, | and friends

Most sensible alternatives are taken:

• / is search
• * adds selection to search register
• - is not common, and though not currently taken, may make sense as the opposite of _, for another PR to implement.
• c change selection
• A-c change selection w/o yank
• C copy selection down
• A-C copy selection up

[the-mikedavis]

C-c does work for closing completion menus / signature help so I think it should work to have it cancel long-running subshell commands if there is one running.

I'm split on this. I think it would be really intuitive for languages with # comments but less so for languages with other tokens. C-c as in comment feels easy to remember across languages

[EpocSquadron]

What's the appropriate way to move this forward?

[archseer]

I've been testing this out but I'd like to see more opinions. # is a nicer key but I find it harder to type than ctrl-c :/

[David-Else]

I think it is a far better choice to use # than ctrl-c, and here is why:

• ctrl-c already has a well established meaning, and that is to to interrupt a process, not make a comment. I assume using it for comments is some abominable left over from VS Code and Microsoft.
• ctrl-c is already used inside Helix to cancel things, I use it all the time for things like closing the file picker. This links nicely mentally to 'interrupt a process' in the terminal.
• I also find # much easier to type, but maybe that is my keyboard.
• This PR has 14 thumbs up and no thumbs down showing the idea is popular

[dimas-cyriaco]

Why not ctrl-/ like most editors? It does not seems to be bound to anything.

[eulerdisk]

I think # is better than C-c, especially for non-so-common actions like commenting. Given that, how about <Space>c ? I don't think is bound. Ideally <Space>c for line-wise and <Space>C for block-wise commenting. In general I much prefer a home-row friendly approach, like gl and gh instead of 0 and $.

[pickfire]

I think this is a good choice since # is used as comment for a lot of stuff ranging from programming languages to configuration, as compared to /** or // or ;.

For context:

• vscode uses C-/, which we can use too
• kate + vim keybinding uses C-/
• online editor like play.rust-lang.org uses C-/
• vim-commentary uses gc<motion>, have more power to know what to comment but translated to helix, that is gc which is taken for goto window center
• kakoune uses #, which is proposed here
• doom emacs uses C-x C-j, this is the worse since it conflicts with IME key and I have to type C-j twice

So I guess for non-modal editors or vim-based keybindings (# was taken for backward search), C-/ is quite popular, but for modal editors, # is a good choice too.

If we want to make it easy for anyone (including from the ones mentioned above), C-/ is better key it makes it easier to learn and at the same time allow extension for non-modal parts of helix like picker or search, that we can use this as second layer filter. But otherwise, # is better since it is not used and it represents how most of the comments look like.

Given that this is type of comment is also quite widely used, I created a pull request to set it as default instead of // in https://github.com/helix-editor/helix/pull/6470.

But for helix and kakoune case, # is not suitable for any other keys, so might as well just use it.

Once the docs are updated, I guess this can be merged given that there is no one opposing here.

[hilpara]

C-/ is not nice for keyboards with umlaut-keys -> have to press 3 keys (ctrl+shift+7)