change sort in the file picker

[BrianHicks]

Hello! I'm exploring Helix (coming from Kakoune) and I'd like a way to change the ordering of the files in the file explorer. In my hand-rolled stuff for Kakoune (and before that in the Vim fzf plugin) I had a custom sorter that sorted by edit distance from the current file. I asked on Matrix and it sounds like there is not already a way to do this.

Here's why I'd like this: when I'm doing stuff in my work monorepo, I frequently want to find related files first, and they tend to be named similarly. So a fuzzy search on README.md (which we have a lot of) surfacing something nearer to the current file in the filesystem hierarchy is useful. Same with finding tests: with a edit-distance sort, I can usually type spec or test (depending on the language) and the relevant file shows up quickly.

I already implemented a little pipe-y program for sorting the files at https://git.bytes.zone/brian/similar-sort. Would this be a nice addition to Helix, or would it be better in a plugin (once those exist?)

[cd-a]

The sorting in the file picker is an issue for me as well, let me explain:

This is how it's set up in neovim:

This is the current default on helix:

I search by filename, and prefer the results on the files instead of folders. On neovim, I use the https://github.com/natecraddock/telescope-zf-native.nvim plugin, which basically just implements zf. This prioritises matches on filenames, which I find way more useful.

Now in helix I have to type app.t to get where I want.

Is this something that is customisable or open to change in the future?

[johan-lejdung]

Here is another good example. In VSCode I has it ordered in numerical descending order. It would be great if we could configure this somehow