Re: Updating *Completions* as you type

[Spencer Baugh]

Daniel Semyonov <daniel@dsemy.com> writes:
> My package Vcomplete implements this functionality, however I stopped
> developing it since I reached the conclusion that this isn’t a very
> useful feature (to me) and all other features of the package were
> implemented in some form in Emacs.  It still works though, and will
> use the base Emacs implementation for those other features if they’re
> available.

Oh yes, I did see your package.  One different is that I don't want to
automatically open the *Completions* buffer, just auto-update after it's
open.  Deciding when to open *Completions* is the responsibility of
completion-auto-help and other such options.

> Some notes:
> - Using after-change-functions to implement this can cause weird
> issues in packages like Tramp and embark which modify the minibuffer
> during completion.

Good to know.

> - If there are a lot of completions, the completions buffer can take a
> while to update, and you need to make sure this process blocks user
> input as little as possible.

Hm, perhaps I can optimize the updating of *Completions*, then.  That
would be generally useful.  Maybe we can find a way to allow user input
to continue while minibuffer-completion-help is running.

> - I recall having issues with the completion buffer popping up
> randomly when typing after completing in a buffer, but I don’t
> remember why it happened and how I solved it.

Plausibly this won't be an issue since I don't plan to open
*Completions* if it's not already open.

> - There is also the package aggressive-completion which does something
> similar.

True!  Seems very similar to vcomplete.  Again it has more features than
I want to implement, though.