Vim

Halcyon's editor is a vim buffer, not a shortcut approximation of one. You get operators, motions, text objects, registers, macros, counts and : ex commands.

Anything you know from vim works. ci", 3dd, qq…q@q, %, /pattern, visual block: none of it is a list Halcyon maintains.

j and k move by visual line rather than by logical line, so wrapped prose behaves the way it looks on screen.

Vim can be turned off in Settings → General, and everything else in the app keeps working. The rest of this page assumes it's on.

The Space leader

<Space> is the leader in normal mode, following Neovim convention. It reaches the app actions you'd otherwise leave the keyboard for.

Keys	What it does
<Space>f	Command palette
<Space>/	Search notes
<Space>n	New note
<Space>N	New folder
<Space>s	Save
<Space>d	Delete the note
<Space>e	Edit view
<Space>v	Split view
<Space>p	Preview view
<Space>o	Open a file
<Space>t	Toggle light / dark
<Space>m	Pin or unpin
<Space>1 <Space>2 <Space>3	Layout: full / list / editor
<Space>z	Cycle layout
<Space>b	Backlinks: notes that link to this one
<Space>*	Bold (normal and visual)
<Space>i	Italic (normal and visual)
<Space>k	Insert link (normal and visual)

Note

<Space>n makes a note called untitled.md and lets it name itself from your first heading, where ⌘N asks for the title up front. That difference is on purpose: the leader layer exists so you never leave the keyboard, and a dialog would defeat it.

Ex commands

Vim's own semantics wherever vim has an opinion. Each shows its shortest accepted abbreviation.

Command	Short	What it does
:write	:w	Save now
:quit	:q	Close the note, or the window in a file window
:wq		Save and close
:xit	:x	Save and close
:edit	:e	Edit view
:split	:sp	Split view
:view	:vie	Preview view
:only	:on	Collapse to the editor alone
:all		Bring the panes back
:new		New note
:trash		Delete the note
:pin		Pin or unpin
:open	:op	Open a file from disk
:reveal	:rev	Reveal the note in Finder
:theme		Toggle light / dark
:find		Command palette
:backlinks		Notes that link to this one

:view is named after vim's own read-only open, which is what preview mode is. :only closes every other window in vim; here it collapses to the editor alone, which is the same intent.

Commands that take an argument

Command	Short	With an argument	With none
:rename	:ren	Renames the file to match the title	Asks for the title
:mv		Moves the note into that folder	Moves it to the vault root
:mkdir	:mk	Creates the folder, parents included	Asks for a name
:cd		Scopes the note list to that folder	Clears the scope
:link		Wraps the selection in a link to that URL	Asks for the URL

:rename Halcyon Sync   renames the file to halcyon-sync.md
:mv work/2026          moves it into work/2026, creating both levels
:cd archive            shows only notes under archive/
:cd                    shows everything again

~ means the vault root, in :mv and in the move dialog alike.

Note

Deleting a note is :trash, not :d. It keeps the old name because :d and :delete are vim's own commands for deleting lines, and Halcyon doesn't take vim's keys away from you.

/ means two things, and the mode decides

In normal mode / is vim's search, untouched. In insert mode, a / at the start of a line opens the slash menu for tables, callouts and code blocks. They can't collide: one is a command you press, the other is a character you type.

Esc closes that menu and leaves you in insert mode; a second Esc returns you to normal. Dismissing it inserts nothing.

The note list is modal too

Focus the list with ⌘2 or ⌃h and these work:

Key	What it does
j k	Down, up
gg G	First note, last note
dd	Delete the note
p	Pin or unpin
n	New note
/	Jump to the search box
↵ or l	Open the note and focus the editor
o	Open it and drop straight into insert mode
Esc	Clear the selection, then the search

Esc peels one layer at a time: a live selection goes first, and only a second press clears the search. Clearing the narrowing while a selection was still live would drop rows out from under it.

Two things that aren't vim's fault

⌃h stands down in insert mode. It's the pane-left shortcut everywhere else, but inside insert mode it has to stay backspace.

Duplicate has no chord. ⌘D already adds a cursor at the next occurrence of your selection, and taking it would cost you multi-cursor. Duplicate lives in the menu, the palette and the right-click menu instead.