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I would like a modal text editor (like Vim) with support for proportional fonts.

As a stop-gap measure, I would at least like an editor that lets the em-dash character ("—") consume multiple columns. (In Neovim and Vim, it only consumes one column, and therefore is barely wider than "-".)

Does such an editor exist? I've heard that Emacs supports proportional fonts, but I was unable to install EViL (Vim emulation), presumably because I just don't understand Emacs and its plugin system at all.

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  • Wow, tall ask! There are hardly any modal text editors at all! And you want one with proportional font support?! Well, I have only heard of one modal text editor that doesn't have the letters "vi" in the name: Kakoune. It doesn't have proportional font support, but it looks good nonetheless.
    – John Y
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 22:48
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    This is probably the closest thing to an answer you'll find. I feel for you, since I'm in the proportional-font minority myself, but the choices are already relatively thin among nonmodal editors. Which is more important to you: being modal or supporting proportional fonts?
    – John Y
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 23:04
  • @JohnY Both, apparently. I use gVim or NeoVim for coding, but Google Docs or similar for non-code writing. I know some people write blog posts, email, and everything else in emacs, but, as I mentioned, that's a dark art to me.
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented Feb 28, 2018 at 23:10
  • If you have difficulties installing Evil you should ask on emacs.stackexchange.com (with a hint that you are a newbe). There are many long-time Evil users there. E.g.: wasamasa
    – Tobias
    Commented Jul 2, 2019 at 18:10
  • @Tobias Sadly I don't remember what problem I had (I think I didn't get any error messages, but none of the Vim key-bindings worked), but next time I try I'll definitely ask for help.
    – Kyle Strand
    Commented Jul 2, 2019 at 20:32

1 Answer 1

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Consider a normal text editor with proportional font support and its extension for modal navigation. The options that I know are Sublime Text with Vintageous, VS Code with VSCodeVim, and a JetBrains IDE with IdeaVim, the official Vim plugin.

I recommend Sublime Text with Vintageous the most for its good support of proportional fonts; it has a free version that sometimes asks to purchase the full version. I recommend a JetBrains IDE with its Vim plugin only if you would use the IDE anyway because it's more specific than a general text editor. I like many aspects of VS Code, but the support of proportional fonts in VS Code is not up to how I'd like it; the wrapping strategy needs to be set to “advanced” for good line-wrapping, and moving the cursor between lines puts the cursor to the position with the same amount of characters before it, not to the visually closest position; that's why I recommend it less than Sublime Text.

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    But what's your recommendation?
    – Alejandro
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 13:10
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    I recommend any of Sublime Text with Vintageous and VS Code with vscodevim as a general-purpose text editor, but probably Sublime Text with Vintageous more because it has better support for proportional fonts. But I think that recommending more things than one is better because it leaves some room for the recipient's preference.
    – matj1
    Commented Mar 9, 2022 at 14:42
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    Thanks @matj1 – but may we ask you to edit your answer to fill the gaps (for a guide, see here)? TL;DR, an answer should include what makes a software recommendable (can be copied to the answer from your comment), but also where to find it (link), and how it matches the requirements. Thanks in advance!
    – Izzy
    Commented Mar 13, 2022 at 16:32

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