Command palette column spacing doesn't shrink

[mecjb]

Summary

The column spacing for bindings in the command palette adjusts to the width of the widest visible bindings set, but never shrinks. This makes some doc strings unreadable, especially when they overflow and end up right aligned (see asciinema). I use the command palette regularly for binding reminders and command discoverability.

Reproduction Steps

In the square terminal the bindings start too wide, making the doc strings too short to be readable, and right aligned. In the wide terminal the columns dynamically resize up, but never shrink back down when long bindings are no longer visible.

square terminal

wide terminal

Helix log

No response

Platform

macOS

Terminal Emulator

kitty 0.34.1

Installation Method

brew

Helix Version

helix 25.1 (dabfb6c)

[mecjb]

Of course after I post the issue I stumble across it being mentioned before #9647 (comment). The thread mentions width handling is naive and could be improved later, but I don't see any followups about it.

[parkero]

I am willing attempt a fix for this if given a starting direction

This is a fairly big hit to discoverability; when first starting with helix <space>? was easily my most used command.

The doc column can now completely disappear off screen, if at any time in the filtering keystrokes you happen to have had a command:

• with a long name (name now set to widest)
• multiple keybinds (bindings now set widest)

These compound additively and lead to pushing the doc column of screen, even when filtering on it specifically. This seems like unintended behavior.

Backspacing does not correct the issue -- the column does not, and will never, reappear until escaping out. Because updates are done per keystroke, it also (interestingly) creates a deterministic subset of strings that will always break doc column functionality.

This should probably be considered a bug, imo.

Example screenshot -- `%d merge` -- (click to expand)