Zed | Yet Emerging Technologies

A pretty new and fast editor written in Rust by the authors of Atom and Electron, a team that used to work at GitHub.It’s elegant, efficient and powerful. As with most of my recent articles, I’ll be covering the main keyboard shortcuts and features I’m currently using. Zed is still young, so I’ll probably come back to it when, for example, the Git integration is improved. I also still need to work on the equivalent hotkeys for Windows and Linux. So stay tuned.

Cheatsheet

Main

Action	macOS	Windows/Linux
open command palette	`Cmd Shift p`	`CtrlS Shift p`
go to File*	`Cmd p` `Space f`	`Ctrl p`
go to pane 1 2 3	`Cmd 1 2 3`	`alt 1 2 3`
move tab left or right	`Cmd Shift [ or ]`
tab switcher	`Ctrl Tab`	`Ctrl Tab`
toggle terminal*	`Cmd t`
toggle sidebar*	`Ctrl s` `Space e`

* mean I’ve added them to my keymap.json

Windows

Action	macOS	Windows/Linux
activate left right up down	`space ← → ↑ ↓`
Split Vertical*	`space v`
Close pane	`space c`
max/min pane*	`space z` `space shift-z`

Editor

Action	macOS	Windows/Linux
increase, decrease, reset font size	`Cmd + - 0`
find in File	`Cmd f`	`Ctrl f`
find in Project	`Cmd Shift f`	`Ctrl Shift f`
toggle comments	`Cmd /`
joins Lines*	`Ctrl j`
add cursors up down	`Ctrl Shift ↑ ↓`
move line up down	`Cmd Ctrl ↑ ↓`
multi cursor in normal mode	`<number> g l`
go to line	`Ctrl G`

📜 Go specific features

As most editor, Zed natively leverage gopls, the Go language server to second you while coding. You just have to install gopls to enjoy the shortcut of this section

go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest
which gopls

Action	macOS	Windows/Linux
Auto-Format on Save Format Document	`Cmd S` `Cmd Shift P` → “Format Document”	`Ctrl S`
Go to Definition	`Cmd Click` or `F12`	`Ctrl Click` or `F12`
Go to Symbol	`Cmd Shift O`	`Ctrl Shift O`
Show Quick Fixes	`Cmd .`	`Ctrl .`
ToggleInlayHints	`space t i`

Zed supports hundreds of other programming languages and text formats.

Configuration

Action	macOS	Windows/Linux
Settings	`Cmd ,`	`Ctrl ,`
Keybindings config	`Cmd k Cmd s`
default keybindings	`Cmd Shift default key`
extensions	`Cmd Shift x`
toggle language selector	`Cmd k m`

🌱 Git Integration XXX

Action	macOS	Windows/Linux
Open Git Panel	`Cmd Shift G`	`Ctrl Shift G`
Commit Changes	`Cmd Enter` (inside Git panel)	`Ctrl Enter` (inside Git panel)
Push/Pull	Use Git panel	Use Git panel

Tasks

A Zed task is a command that you can run from within it using spawn or by simply assigning a keymap. All the Task like everything else in Zed is accessible from the command Palette

Action	macOS	Windows/Linux
execute a task	`Space t e`
rerun a task	`Space t r`
edit project tasks into .zed/tasks.json	`Cmd Shift p proj task`
edit tasks	`Cmd Shift p open task`

The current tasks I configured at this staged

// Static tasks configuration.
[
  {
    "label": "Go: run",
    "command": "go run .",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  },
  {
    "label": "Go: test",
    "command": "go test ./...",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  },
  {
    "label": "Go: build",
    "command": "go build .",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  },
  {
    "label": "Go: tidy",
    "command": "go mod tidy",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  },
  {
    "label": "Go: init",
    "command": "go mod init",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  },
  {
    "label": "Go: test a function",
    "command": "go test -run $ZED_SYMBOL $ZED_FILE",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  },
  {
    "label": "TEMPL: generate",
    "command": "templ generate",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  },
  {
    "label": "Go: modd",
    "command": "modd",
    "use_new_terminal": false,
    "reveal": "never",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false
  }
]

Keymaps

Open default Keymap

cmd+shift+p open default keymap

Config file

read on macos from ~/.zed/keymap.json read on Linux from ~/.config/zed/keymap.json

syntax

ctrl The control key
cmd, win or super for the platform modifier (Command on macOS, Windows key on Windows, and the Super key on Linux).
alt for alt (option on macOS)
shift The shift key
fn The function key

My Config

My current keymap file contain the following custom hotkeys.

// Zed keymap
//
// For information on binding keys, see the Zed
// documentation: https://zed.dev/docs/key-bindings
//
// To see the default key bindings run `zed: open default keymap`
// from the command palette.
[
  {
    "context": "Workspace",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-t": "terminal_panel::ToggleFocus",
      "ctrl-s": "workspace::ToggleLeftDock"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      // "j k": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "escape"]
      "ctrl-j": "editor::JoinLines"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "EmptyPane || SharedScreen || vim_operator == none && !VimWaiting && vim_mode != insert",
    "bindings": {
      "space t e": "task::Spawn",
      "space t r": ["task::Rerun", { "reevaluate_context": true }],
      "space f": "file_finder::Toggle",
      "space e": "workspace::ToggleLeftDock",
      "space v": "pane::SplitRight",
      "space c": "pane::CloseActiveItem",
      "space z": "vim::MaximizePane",
      "space t i": "editor::ToggleInlayHints",
      "space shift-z": "vim::ResetPaneSizes",
      "space left": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Left"],
      "space right": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Right"],
      "space up": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Up"],
      "space down": ["workspace::ActivatePaneInDirection", "Down"]
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "Terminal",
    "bindings": {
      "cmd-t": "workspace::ToggleBottomDock",
      "cmd-n": "workspace::NewTerminal"
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "ProjectPanel",
    "bindings": {
      "space e": "workspace::ToggleLeftDock"
    }
  }
]

make sure vim_mode is true in your settings

SSH

Zed offers an ability to work on code hosted remotely provided you have access to the distant host thru SSH

Connect to a remote server using Ctrl Cmd O and click Connect New Server
Zed will connect over SSH download the binary and start it
You’ll then be prompted with a PATH

You can also open a remote path like this

zed ssh://[<user>@]<host>[:<port>]/<path>

gopls

Make sure you install gopls like this instead of using your operating system package or homebrew. If you’ve already installed it like this just uninstall and re-install.

go install golang.org/x/tools/gopls@latest

Zed should automatically detect gopls and provide features like:

Auto-completion
Hover documentation
Go-to definition
Error checking
Format code on save

Git

Zed currently only support, more to come

Diff indicators in buffers and editor scrollbars
Inline diff toggle and reverts in the editor for unstaged changes
Git status in the project panel
Branch creating and switching
Git blame viewing

Cheatsheet#

Main#

Windows#

Editor#

📜 Go specific features#

Configuration#

🌱 Git Integration XXX#

Tasks#

Keymaps#

Open default Keymap#

Config file#

syntax#

My Config#

SSH#

gopls#

Git#

Links#