Re: Isearch interaction model

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Juri Linkov <address@hidden>
> Date: Sun, 04 Mar 2018 00:50:27 +0200
> Cc: Emacs developers <address@hidden>
> 
> >> I think the answer is to have one history which records the mode used
> >> for each search, so that it is reused correctly.  (When it makes sense,
> >> the user can change the search mode after selecting the history element.)
> >>
> >
> > Yep.
> 
> One of the main questions to decide is how to attach search parameters
> to the search string in the search history in a backward-compatible way.
> We can't do this by adding text properties with search parameters
> to the search string because text properties on strings can't be saved
> in the desktop file or by other history saving libraries.
> 
> I see no way other than introducing a new incompatible history variable
> that will keep previous searches with parameters in the same format
> as is used currently by the search stack in isearch-cmds.

Aren't we over-engineering this stuff?  IMNSHO, separate histories
could be just fine, since it's easy enough to change the Isearch mode
after you have the previous search string in the minibuffer.  And if
you remember your previous searches, you most probably also remember
whether you searched for a string as a symbol or a word or whatever.

By contrast, breaking back-compatibility for this reason sounds gross
to me.