Hidden Gems: Community Edition

[JosephTLyons]

Hey all, we just published Hidden Gems: Team Edition Part 1, the first in a series of blog posts where we document some of our favorite hidden features and personal workflows we use in Zed. We plan to write community editions for this series as well and would love to learn about your favorite tips and tricks.

Feel free to use this GitHub Discussion as a place to share your Hidden Gems and upvote those you find useful. We'll sweep through the posts here and build community editions around tips that are popular (determined by upvotes) or that we find unique and useful. We already have your GitHub handle, but if you want to leave your name as well for attribution, feel free. If needed, include screenshots as well!

Excited to learn about your hidden Zed gems! 💎

[jorgejhms]

I don't know how hidden gem it is, but I changed the commit model to gemini-2.0-flash from my gemini api key, which is free to use. Only set up this at your config:

agent: {
    "commit_message_model": {
      "provider": "google",
      "model": "gemini-2.0-flash"
    }
}

[thraizz]

You cannot customize the prompt here, right? To make it write conventional commits

[warrenjokinen]

Those 💎 were awesome!

Today I Learned that file names can contain emojis (I am on a Mac.)
So, in the Project Panel you can use the Rename context menu and put emojis at the leading or trailing or middle of a file name.

Zed does not give a warning about this, like it does for whitespace (it probably should.)

Hope you like that one, and certainly keep posting more 💎 !

[MRiabov]

Some languages like Mojo lang support emojis as file extensions.

[warrenjokinen]

Wow. It does look like the Mac can have files with emojis as extensions, this file name apparently "works":

TODO . 👀

Aside... I have chipmunk ( 🐿️ ) emoji on my OS, but I don't have squirrel, yet !!

[warrenjokinen]

🐿️
I found several Mojo language syntax highlighter extensions for VS Code, but none available for Zed, yet (?)

[MRiabov]

🐿️ I found several Mojo language syntax highlighter extensions for VS Code, but none available for Zed, yet (?)

it's an unstable language yet, kind of. Hopefully will be as popular as rust and python combined though.

[jmacey]

I setup zed so I could use it with the Maya and Houdini animation tools, for Houdini just set as external editor. For maya it needed a little more work and a script described here https://nccastaff.bournemouth.ac.uk/jmacey/post/ZedMaya/ZedMaya/ I'm also using it in class and have started to set some default stuff for students, will write this up soon.

[schpet]

zed's diff editor is incredibly nice, the git: diff one. the combination of multibuffers, additions and removals, and syntax highlighting is amazing.

i've found that i often want to use it to review other changes...

because i use jj, and colocate all my git repos, i am able to run jj edit <ref> in the terminal, run git: diff in zed and view a diff for any existing commits. you can even review entire branches (i.e. PRs) with this idea – requires a bit of squashing and stuff, but if you are reviewing a big diff it's much nicer than the github ui :4)

[brycefranzen]

k9s and lazygit tasks with full-size centered terminal:

[
  {
    "label": "lazygit",
    "command": "lazygit",
    "cwd": "${ZED_WORKTREE_ROOT}",
    "hide": "on_success",
    "use_new_terminal": true,
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false,
    "reveal_target": "center"
  },
  {
    "label": "k9s",
    "command": "k9s",
    "cwd": "${ZED_WORKTREE_ROOT}",
    "hide": "on_success",
    "use_new_terminal": true,
    "allow_concurrent_runs": false,
    "reveal_target": "center"
  }
]

Keybindings similar to lazyvim:

[
  {
    "context": "EmptyPane || SharedScreen",
    "bindings": {
      "space g g": ["task::Spawn", { "task_name": "lazygit" }],
      "space k s": ["task::Spawn", { "task_name": "k9s" }]
    }
  },
]

[brycefranzen]

Add bun test quick actions to bun test files:
Task:

[
  {
    "label": "Bun Test",
    "command": "bun test",
    "args": ["\"$ZED_RELATIVE_FILE\" -t=\"$ZED_SYMBOL\""],
    "tags": ["js-test", "ts-test", "bun-test", "tsx-test"]
  },
]

Looks like this in the file (can click to run the test):

[brycefranzen]

Make zed behave more like lazyvim.

Here are several of my keybindings that allow me to fully navigate zed without touching the mouse:

[
  // Allow changing panes without the mouse (ctrl + vim direction keys)
  {
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-h": "workspace::ActivatePaneLeft",
      "ctrl-l": "workspace::ActivatePaneRight",
      "ctrl-k": "workspace::ActivatePaneUp",
      "ctrl-j": "workspace::ActivatePaneDown"
    }
  },
  
  // Allow changing tabs without mouse (shift + vim direction keys)
  {
    "context": "VimControl && !menu",
    "bindings": {
      "L": "pane::ActivateNextItem",
      "H": "pane::ActivatePreviousItem"
    }
  },
  
  // Allow changing panes and tabs when the terminal is focused (ctrl + vim direction keys)
  {
    "context": "Terminal",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-k": "workspace::ActivatePaneUp",
      "ctrl-l": "workspace::ActivatePaneRight",
      "ctrl-h": "workspace::ActivatePaneLeft",
      "ctrl-n": "workspace::NewTerminal",
      "ctrl-shift-h": "pane::ActivatePreviousItem",
      "ctrl-shift-l": "pane::ActivateNextItem"
    }
  },
  
  // Add ability to navigate through menu items with (ctrl + n, ctrl + p)
  // ctrl + n works by default, but ctrl + p didn't in some cases due to conflicts
  {
    "context": "(FileFinder || FileFinder > Picker > Editor)",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-p": null
    }
  },
  {
    "context": "",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-p": "menu::SelectPrevious"
    }
  },
  
  // Auto exit insert mode and save when pressing ctrl + s
  {
    "context": "Editor && vim_mode == insert && !VimWaiting && !menu",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-s": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "escape ctrl-s"]
    }
  },
  
  // Comment current line with ctrl + /, but then move the cursor to the line below after
  // this allows typing ctrl + / multiple times to comment multiple lines
  {
    "context": "Editor",
    "bindings": {
      "ctrl-/": ["workspace::SendKeystrokes", "ctrl-/ down"],
    }
  },
]

[papadavis47]

I have copied over a few of these 👍🏼 Thank you 😄

[k3rn31]

I was reading in Oct the 7th "Hidden Gems" post the suggestion of using save on focus change. I wanted a behaviour JetBrains style where everything is saved instantly, change focus or not. Here my little gem:

"autosave": {
  "after_delay": {
    "milliseconds": 0
  }
}

[ceuk]

Just a petty comment to say that in your blog you credited /u/parawaa for the LazyGit thing but I posted about it on the Zed Subreddit about a year ago 🤓

[JosephTLyons]

Posting this tip from @baldwindavid for configuring television in Zed to act like telescope.

tasks.json

  {
    "label": "File Finder",
    "command": "zed \"$(tv files)\"",
    "hide": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": true,
    "use_new_terminal": true
  },
  {
    "label": "Find in Files",
    "command": "zed \"$(tv text)\"",
    "hide": "always",
    "allow_concurrent_runs": true,
    "use_new_terminal": true
  },

keymap.json

"cmd-p": [
  "task::Spawn",
  { "task_name": "File Finder", "reveal_target": "center" }
],
"cmd-f": [
  "task::Spawn",
  { "task_name": "Find in Files", "reveal_target": "center" }
],

[plpinet]

Launch Zed terminal with a new tmux session specific to the project.

settings.json

  "terminal": {
    "shell": {
      "with_arguments": {
        "program": "/usr/bin/bash",
        "args": ["-c", "tmux new-session -A -s \"$(basename \"$PWD\")\""]
      }
    }
  }

Very useful for people who are used not having to rely on the mouse to select, copy, navigate, etc. inside the terminal.