Re: Suggestions for the temporary windows used from the minibuffer

[Lennart Borgman]

Richard M. Stallman wrote:

>    +    (define-key map [(f1)] 'isearch-help-for-help)
>    +    (define-key map "\C-h" 'isearch-mode-help)
>    +    (define-key map [(meta prior)] 'isearch-scroll-other-down)
>    +    (define-key map [(meta next)]  'isearch-scroll-other-up)
>    +    (define-key map [(prior)] 'isearch-scroll-other-down)
>    +    (define-key map [(next)]  'isearch-scroll-other-up)
>
> I think there are already too many useful keys that fail to exit
> isearch as I expect them to.  (Yesterday the fact that M-c is special
> in isearch caused me trouble.)  So I won't say yes to this.
>
> I might perhaps say yes to part of it, after some discussion.
>  
I missed that you could exit isearch that way. Then I would for sure 
drop 5 and 6 and keep 1-4 to be able to give help in isearch. Some 
people use 1 and some 2. 3 and 4 are needed to be able to scroll the 
help and are probably expected to do that by many users.

>    +(defun isearch-mode-help-when-active()
>    +  (interactive)
>
> What is this function for?  What job does it do?
It gives help when doing an isearch and is used by the keys above. There 
are many keys to use in isearch mode so I think it is needed. I 
hesitated a bit but then I decided to implement it in two steps:

1) Typing f1 or C-h starts the usual help available on this keys.

2) However this help now has an additional entry that is available by 
typing a certain character (I choose ?x at the moment). This brings up 
the special help describing all the keys in isearch. This additional 
entry is mentioned first, before the normal entries since you probably 
want this one first.

Well, it is just a suggestion and trying it out is perhaps the best to 
see how it works. My rational for doing it this way was that many users 
might find it convenient to just check for one key the same way as they 
are used to while other wants to see all keys that are special to 
isearch. Might be overkill but it is easy to use and isearch is a great 
tool that deserves good help functionality.