Re: [Nano-devel] [PATCH] browser: when using goto prompt, previous working directory remains unselected

[Benno Schulenberg]

Hello Rishabh,

On Mon, Jul 18, 2016, at 20:00, Rishabh Dave wrote:
> Attached patch solves the bug - when using goto prompt, previous
> working directory remains unselected. Link to it -
> http://savannah.gnu.org/bugs/?48513.
> 
> While using prompt, we can jump to not only parent but also to
> grandparent or great-grandparent directories or even more until to the
> root. So, I have added some more code to handle that.

Hm.  So when I'm in /home/user/folder  and I type in nano ^R ^T
followed by M-G ../../.. <Enter>, it jumps to the root directory and
highlights "home   (dir)" to indicate that that is where I came from?
Okay.  But what if I then press <Enter>?  It doesn't highlight
"user   (dir)" to give me an easy way to retrace my steps.  So the
usefulness of highlighting the originating dir after a jump is limited.

Also, if instead of M-G ../../.. <Enter> I do M-G / <Enter>, the dir
that I came from is *not* highlighted.  This makes this highlighting
even less useful.  And worse, if instead of M-G .. <Enter> I do M-G
/home/user, the "folder   (dir)" is not highlighted.  Hm.  If going to
the parent dir should highlight the originating dir, it should do that
always, in whatever manner we land there -- even when we type ^R .. ^T.

So, seeing the various ways in which we can jump to a parent dir, I
would say: let jumping behave differently from typing <Enter> on "..".
If the user wants the originating dir to be highlighted, they should
type M-\ <Enter>.  If they find this highlighting annoying, they can
use M-G .. <Enter>.  So... I am inclined to mark the above bug as
"wontfix".

> Further, on hitting root I found it unnecessary to keep error message
> as ALERT; I kept it MILD.

When hitting root, the code should not emit an error message at all; it
should silently ignore too many levels of ../.  Only when interactively
typing Enter on /.., a message is appropriate.

> Last, if there are more "../" than the length of the path, then
> selection jumps to last element. This would indicate user of the the
> fact that he didn't try to jump to the root but beyond that.

Very strange behavior.  Would not be accepted.  (But is irrelevant
because of previous comments.)

Benno

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