Do the kakoune and neovim keyboard shortcuts conflict for you? I've put off trying non-vim modal editors because I think there's only enough room for one set of shortcuts in my head. How difficult is it for you to switch between them?
It's not too bad, because the most basic commands are about the same. The ones that get me the most are dd and V. When I switch to the other editor I get these wrong a couple of times before the mental model readjusts. That said, I never was a super advanced vim user because I couldn't remember the rarely used motions. Part of the reason I started using kakoune is that I find it easier on my brain. Basically everything is in Visual mode by default, where you select before issuing the command.
I've been using vim (neovim) for more years than I can count, but there is still so many movements that doesn't stick in my head, probably because I don't use them so much.
I recently came across the which-key.nvim (https://github.com/folke/which-key.nvim) neovim plugin, which helped me a lot to speed up finding what movement I want to do. It basically shows you a popup with what combinations are possible after you press any key (while nvim waits for the next one), so you can basically explore commands by just pressing keys, instead of having to look them up.
This is neat. I'm the type that immediately disabled the arrow keys when I was learning vim and treated it like learning the piano (which, I admit, is a bit mental) and just forcefully drilled most of it into muscle memory.
I think this would have sped me up even more. Definietly neat. There's also a few plugins/configs around highlight as-you-search worth exploring. That being said I strongly recommend against going plugin shopping, you only need precious few. It is a better use of your time to do it the hard way sometimes.
