Re: [FR] Allow flattened imenu index

[João Távora]

On Mon, Dec 11, 2023 at 7:27 PM Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net> wrote:

> > Indeed, it's unfortunate that imenu--make-index-alist and imenu--index-alist
> > are named as internal.
>
> Should they be renamed to `imenu-make-index-alist' and `imenu-index-alist' 
> then?

Maybe, but it's much more urgent IMO to review the representation
they describe, since it's all over the place.  Ideally do this
before any rename.

Incidentally, I just remembered why breadcrumb-jump uses the
'breadcrumb-region' text property cookie: it's because without it
the current imenu tree structure has no way to for backends to
store locations to non-leaf nodes, which are often among the places
you want to jump to.

text-properties + standard cons trees + "special elements" is a
bit of a ugly mess, but OTOH it works and is backwards compatible
to existing frontends and backends.

So one of the possibilities that whoever conducts this review
may consider is an 'imenu-region' text property similar to
'breadcrumb-region', describe it imenu--index-alist, and
make M-x imenu take advantage of it.

João