Re: Questions on completion

[Roland Winkler]

On Wed Oct 25 2017 Basil L. Contovounesios wrote:
> 1) AIUI, the user option bbdb-completion-list lists all
>    fields it is currently possible to complete. Are there
>    any plans to support completing more fields, e.g. the
>    mail-name xfield? If not, are there any objections or
>    technical obstacles to such a feature?

There is certainly no fundamental obstacle preventing such a
feature.  - Could you explain with a few words the usage scenario
you have in mind for when the proposed feature will come handy?
(I do not use the mail-name xfield at all; i never found a need for
it.)

> 2) Why does bbdb-complete-mail use a *Completions* buffer
>    populated by the display-completion-list function,
>    instead of using a higher-level completion command such
>    as completing-read or completing-read-multiple? Would it
>    be favourable and/or possible to switch to using such an
>    interface, or support both?

bbdb-complete-mail runs in the mail buffer, whereas
completing-read(-multiple) runs in the minibuffer.  Apart from that,
they behave similarly: both use a *Completions* buffer to display
possible completions.

When would it be useful to run the completion performed by
bbdb-complete-mail not in the mail buffer but in a minibuffer?

Note also that bbdb-completing-read-mails provides minibuffer
completion similar to bbdb-complete-mail.  This is used in a couple
of places (search the code).

Roland