Opening a directory should change directory

[cjohansson]

Describe your feature request

Background: I would like the ability to quickly switch working directory, I feel like helix just like vim/vi/neovim places too much emphasis on where I was in the shell when I initially started the editor. I would like to be able to have a helix session on for the entire day / days and switch filesystem contexts as needed. (Ideally I would to like have different current working directories for different buffers but that is another feature request.)

When opening a directory with the command :open the current working directory should change to the specified location and the file picker for the directory should be displayed. At the moment I get a OS error and the specified path is cleared.

This would be similar to how Emacs does C-x C-f and then pressing C-d in a directory to enter dired-mode for the specified directory

[kirawi]

You can use :cd to change the working directory. I agree that a file picker should open if you :open to a directory.

[weakphish]

I'd like to give this a shot, if that's okay?

[the-mikedavis]

The file picker popping up when you :open a directory seems like a nice win (see also #2558), I'd say go for it 🙂

In my opinion :open shouldn't also :cd you though, I would prefer those be separate operations. Something like #2056 could combine the :open and changing the cwd

[weakphish]

@the-mikedavis would you mind assigning the mentioned issue to me? Thanks!

[the-mikedavis]

Could you add a comment to the issue you'd like to work on? GitHub only lets me assign members and issue participants (author or commenters)

[alexxbb]

I'd very much like to see this implemented in Helix. I use :e . in Vim all the time to quickly inspect different folder in my project.

[pascalkuthe]

Opening a directory with :o was implemented in #2707. I don't think we will change the cwd so I will close this.