Re: Updating *Completions* as you type

[Spencer Baugh]

Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> writes:

>> It would be nice if there was a built-in customization which caused
>> *Completions* to update as you type, as long as that buffer is visible.
>> I imagine such a request has been made before, so what is the obstacle
>> to adding it?
>
> I don't remember what was the obstacle, but here is the previous patch
> that implements the behavior of zsh and is based on icomplete-mode.

Nice! Although again this is more features than I want - I just want
*Completions* to automatically update after it opens.

>> I would like to figure out a solution which everyone is happy with, and
>> then I would be happy to implement it.  It seems to me that it's just a
>> matter of, after each keystroke, triggering (for minibuffer completion)
>> minibuffer-completion-help or (for buffer completion) some new function
>> to populate *Completions* with all-completions output.
>
> There is one difference between icomplete-mode and zcomplete-mode:
> the former uses completion-all-sorted-completions where the
> recently used items are at the top of the completion list.
> Whereas the latter uses the same alphabetical sorting as TAB
> shows in the *Completions* buffer.  Maybe a new function
> should allow any sorting order?

This is orthogonal to my original topic, which is just updating
*Completions* as I type, without changing how it gets populated.

That being said, yes this may be nice.  But minibuffer-completion-help
already does sort the completions using display-sort-function, just like
completion-all-sorted-completions, so what's causing the difference in
behavior?

Honestly the main place I find myself wanting different sorting of
completions is for buffer completion - I'd prefer buffers to be sorted
by most-recently-used.  Maybe we can just add such an option?