Add readonly mode

[tryoxiss]

Hi, I was kinda shocked to find out that helix dosen't have a proper read only mode--given its mentioned multiple times. Or at least its not documented anywhere aside from the option to show [READONLY] in the statusline (which is the only mention of it in the docs at all).

I found an action execution, but using the flag resuklts in a could not parse arguments error. (Helix 23.10). I read the entire (very short) help page, which had nothing, did multiple searches in the docs and outside of them.

Is it just a planned thing and thsts poorly communicated? Am I missing something?

[kirawi]

Do you mean opening a file in readonly mode even if you have permissions to write? That is not supported (see #7128 (comment)). It is only opened readonly if the file is readonly.

[tryoxiss]

Yeah pretty much! Just feels weird that basically every other editor has this but helix is missing it -- since its very useful for when you want just a bit more than a pager (e.g., read a code file with syntax hilighting). Even just a --read flag (like is mentioned the #7128 comment in which makes it behave as if you didnt have write permissions would be incredible!

[matthias-t]

I sometimes use helix as a pager with cat FILE | hx. This does not automatically work with syntax highlighting, though, but one could use :set-language.