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Re: Looking for universal completion with simple UI
From: |
dont . spam . earl |
Subject: |
Re: Looking for universal completion with simple UI |
Date: |
Tue, 7 Oct 2014 08:39:15 -0700 (PDT) |
User-agent: |
G2/1.0 |
Yes, these are important UI considerations that I hadn't thought through yet.
Thanks for outlining the possibilities.
I see now how Icicles does indeed provide much of the functionality I'd like
including supporting comint inputs, search history, etc.
Drew - The one unresolved issue for me is simplicity: the documentation for
Icicles spans dozens of pages on emacswiki.org. Even after using it for a few
months, I'm still surprised and turned-off by some of the defaults. I can
envision an "Emacs Starter Kit"-style layer on top of icicles that provides a
simpler interface and smoother learning curve. This might come at the cost of
some of the advanced features and configurability however. If it were to have a
different name yet acknowledge Icicles in its documentation, is that something
you'd oppose?
Thanks,
Earl
On Sunday, October 5, 2014 10:53:01 PM UTC-7, Drew Adams wrote:
> > Drew - thanks for the response. Yes, Icicles is the most
>
> > comprehensive package for completion I've found, particularly for
>
> > the mini buffer. I found it especially helpful to read you
>
> > explaining the philosophy here:
>
> > http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2100166/making-sense-out-of-
>
> > emacs-completion-mode-choices
>
> >
>
> > It appears Icicles is focused on mini-buffer completion though.
>
> > Any tips for the various forms of in-buffer completion: searching,
>
> > cycling through killed text, etc.?
>
>
>
> One consideration is where you type the text to be completed, i.e.,
>
> whether you type it first in the minibuffer or you type it directly
>
> in the destination buffer.
>
>
>
> IOW, even if you are completing text that you type into a buffer
>
> (e.g., code), completion can use the minibuffer for (temporary)
>
> text entry and another buffer (e.g. `*Completions*') for candidate
>
> display. (Or it could, Ido-style, use the minibuffer for both input
>
> and candidate display.)
>
>
>
> To complete text in a buffer it is more common that you type there
>
> and hit a key to complete there, without opening a minibuffer for
>
> temporary text entry. But where you enter the text is relevant
>
> only to UI convenience, not to what kinds of completion are
>
> available, for what contexts, etc. Typing directly into the buffer
>
> does have the advantage that you need not temporarily move your eye elsewhere
> (i.e., to the minibuffer or to `*Completions*').
>
>
>
> It is true that Icicles does not have a lot of direct, particular
>
> support for completing different kinds of buffer text. It supports
>
> general, dynamic text completion (`dabbrev', `completion.el'). It supports
> BBDB text completion, comint (shell) text completion, and
>
> Lisp symbol completion. Other than those, it does not offer
>
> anything special completing different kinds of text.
>
>
>
> But if another library uses `completing-read' to provide a
>
> particular form of text completion (e.g., completion for terms
>
> in a particular programming language), then you can take
>
> advantage of Icicles completion. Most do not, AFAIK - they tend
>
> to use in-buffer prefix entry and in-place cycling of completion
>
> candidates.
>
>
>
> Wrt which packages provide particular support for different
>
> programming languages, others will no doubt chime in with
>
> suggestions. For vanilla Emacs there are CEDET and Semantic,
>
> and various programming-language modes should offer some text
>
> completion.
>
>
>
> If you look at the code for the Icicles versions of `dabbrev'
>
> etc. completion (command `icicle-dabbrev-completion'), you will
>
> see that it is essentially the vanilla code with Icicles
>
> completion added to handle the multiple-candidates case.
>
>
>
> This means that if you have some existing text-completion code,
>
> you can likely convert it easily to take advantage of Icicles
>
> completion for the multiple-candidates case.
>
>
>
> (Dunno what you mean by "searching, cycling through killed text"
>
> as "forms of in-buffer completion". Icicles provides completion
>
> for searching; for yanking kill-ring text; and for navigating
>
> using Imenu, bookmarks, the mark-ring, tag files, Info nodes,
>
> grep or occur hits, buffer narrowings, etc. But I don't really
>
> see such things as being forms of "in-buffer completion".)
- Looking for universal completion with simple UI, dont . spam . earl, 2014/10/05
- RE: Looking for universal completion with simple UI, Drew Adams, 2014/10/05
- Message not available
- Message not available
- Re: Looking for universal completion with simple UI,
dont . spam . earl <=
- RE: Looking for universal completion with simple UI, Drew Adams, 2014/10/08
- Message not available
- Re: Looking for universal completion with simple UI, dont . spam . earl, 2014/10/17
- RE: Looking for universal completion with simple UI, Drew Adams, 2014/10/17
- RE: Looking for universal completion with simple UI, Drew Adams, 2014/10/20
- Message not available
- Re: Looking for universal completion with simple UI, dont . spam . earl, 2014/10/30
Re: Looking for universal completion with simple UI, Tu, Do, 2014/10/08