Time travel

Alt-u and Alt-U step through the history one state at a time. When the state you want is a long way back, there’s an easier way to get there.

Helix has two commands for time traveling through the document history: :earlier and :later. To see the document as it was ten minutes ago, use :earlier 10m. To get back, use :later 10m.

There are two ways to measure the trip:

• A plain number counts states — :earlier 1 is the same as Alt-u, and :later 1 is the same as Alt-U.
• A duration counts time — 10s, 10m, 2h, or 1d for seconds, minutes, hours, and days.

Work through the checklist below to time travel by a single change: delete a line, then travel back and forward again. Once you have the hang of it, make a few more edits, wait a short while, and try traveling with a duration — like :earlier 10s.