Re: Suggestions for improvements to the *Completions* buffer

[Philip Kaludercic]

Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> writes:

>> I'd like to suggest a few modifications to the default behaviour of
>> the *Completions* buffer.  These are mostly conservative extensions of
>> the current defaults.
>
> Thanks, all your patches is a nice improvement.  I have a question only
> about the last patch.
>
>> When exiting the *Completions* buffer, C-g and q seem not to send the
>> user back to minibuffer.
>
> This was just a plain bug.
>
>> +(defun completion-quit ()
>> +  "Close the completion buffer and return to the minibuffer."
>> +  (interactive)
>> +  (quit-window)
>> +  (switch-to-minibuffer))
>> +
>> +(defun completion-kill-buffer ()
>> +  "Close the completion buffer and return to the minibuffer."
>> +  (interactive)
>> +  (kill-buffer "*Completions*")
>> +  (switch-to-minibuffer))
>> @@ -8970,10 +8982,12 @@ completion-list-mode-map
>> +    (define-key map "z" #'completion-kill-buffer)
>> +    (define-key map [remap keyboard-quit] #'completion-quit)
>> +    (define-key map [remap quit-window] #'switch-to-minibuffer)
>
> So typing C-g in the *Completions* buffer will be the same as
> typing C-g in the minibuffer?  This would provide more consistency.

No, currently not: C-g will close the completions buffer, "reverting" a
change so to say, and another C-g in the minibuffer will cancel the
completion.

>> In the *Completions*, self-insert-command is not bound so that "q", "n",
>> "p", "z", ... can be used.  This patch would add "s" (for
>> isearch-forward) and "S" (for isearch-forward-regexp) to the default
>> bunch.  This is my most recent change, that I am least certain about.
>> If I played around with it for a bit longer, maybe this could also be
>> extended to an interactive narrowing along the lines of icomplete.
>
> I guess it's too late to allow all self-inserting keys in the *Completions*
> buffer to be used either to add characters to the search string,
> or to narrow completions interactively as if they were typed in the 
> minibuffer,
> because "q", "n", "p", "z" are already bound to other commands?

True, so immediate narrowing (at least with the default bindings)
couldn't be done, but that doesn't mean that narrowing couldn't be
enabled by binding an activation command to conventional keys like "s"
and "/".

-- 
        Philip Kaludercic