hx --tutor or :tutor don't work when hx is symlink

[bnoordhuis]

Summary

The tutor doesn't work when hx is invoked through a symlink. The real path works.

Reproduction Steps

I tried this:

1. download and untar helix to $HOME/opt/helix
2. cd $HOME/bin && ln -s ../opt/helix/hx (~/bin is on the PATH)
3. hx --tutor

I expected this to happen:

See the tutorial. :-)

Instead, this happened:

Nothing. Empty buffer.

Helix log

No log file was written.

Platform

macOS

Terminal Emulator

Terminal.app

Helix Version

helix 22.08.1 (66276ce)

[the-mikedavis]

Does syntax highlighting work either when hx is a symlink? I think the symlink is breaking the detection of the runtime directory. You can set an explicit $HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable to the runtime directory path to fix it.

The tutor is loaded from the runtime directory:

helix/helix-term/src/application.rs

Lines 160 to 163 in fae9203

	let path = helix_loader::runtime_dir().join("tutor.txt");
	editor.open(&path, Action::VerticalSplit)?;
	// Unset path to prevent accidentally saving to the original tutor file.
	doc_mut!(editor).set_path(None)?;

[bnoordhuis]

Syntax highlighting indeed doesn't work.

I believe runtime_dir() ultimately falls back to std::env::current_exe()? Can I suggest running that through std::fs::canonicalize() to get the real path?

(I can try putting together a PR sometime next week.)

[9glenda]

On my nixos install helix is also a symlink (like on every nixos install) and the tutor works
here info about my symlink:

[glenda@nixos:~]$ ls -lah $(which hx)
lrwxrwxrwx 1 root root 62 Jan  1  1970 /run/current-system/sw/bin/hx -> /nix/store/skpa4rd1h3s23b1h1v6y5rn58vq1zd5i-helix-22.08/bin/hx

If there are any issues with helix being a symlink nixos users will always suffer from them.

[the-mikedavis]

Nix builds set the HELIX_RUNTIME environment variable (nixpkgs, this repo's flake)

[rayhem]

I'm not sure if this is the same issue or just the same symptom because I'm super new to Helix, but I followed the build-from-source instructions on a Debian 11 machine (clone repo & $ cargo install --path helix-term, helix version d14de27) and I've not gotten hx --tutor to do anything meaningful. I've tried running both with and without links to helix, as well as running the executable directly with both relative and absolute pathing and the application only ever shows me an empty buffer. I'm happy to open a new issue with full details if this is only superficially related.

[the-mikedavis]

If you installed from source, you need to link the runtime directory:

helix/README.md

Lines 60 to 67 in d14de27

	Helix needs its runtime files so make sure to copy/symlink the `runtime/` directory into the
	config directory (for example `~/.config/helix/runtime` on Linux/macOS, or `%AppData%/helix/runtime` on Windows).
	| OS | Command |
	| -------------------- | ------------------------------------------------ |
	| Windows (Cmd) | `xcopy /e /i runtime %AppData%\helix\runtime` |
	| Windows (PowerShell) | `xcopy /e /i runtime $Env:AppData\helix\runtime` |
	| Linux / macOS | `ln -s $PWD/runtime ~/.config/helix/runtime` |