bug#53126: 29.0.50; [PATCH] Lazy highlight/count when reading query-replace string, etc.

[Augusto Stoffel <arstoffel@gmail.com>]

On Tue, 15 Mar 2022 at 19:09, Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> wrote:

>> Inlined below some further comments.
>>
>>>>> I meant using simply
>>>>>
>>>>>   (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'isearch-read-with-highlight-setup)
>>>>>
>>>>> But it seems isearch-read-with-highlight-setup doesn't set
>>>>> isearch-lazy-count-display-function.
>>
>> What used to be 'isearch-read-with-highlight-setup' is now
>> 'minibuffer-lazy-highlight-setup'.
>>
>> Just to make sure I understood you: your suggestion is for this function
>> to remove itself automagically from the minibuffer setup hook, to
>> dispense with the need of 'minibuffer-with-setup-hook'?  This seems
>> handy but unusual, hence my question.
>> ...
>> - In a previous message, you seemed to suggest making
>>   `minibuffer-lazy-highlight-setup' self-cleaning form the
>>   minibuffer-setup-hook, so as to dispense with the need for
>>   `with-minibuffer-setup-hook'.  I did exactly that, but since I haven't
>>   seen this convention before, I wanted to double check.
>
> Actually, my comment was about having the line that you already added
> in your latest patch in 'minibuffer-lazy-highlight-setup':
>
>   (add-hook 'lazy-count-update-hook #'minibuffer-lazy-highlight--count)
>
> So I don't see the need to have this line:
>
>   (remove-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook #'minibuffer-lazy-highlight-setup)

Okay, but if I remove this line, then all calls to
minibuffer-lazy-highlight-setup will require a with-minibuffer-setup
hook.  And this will be awkward:

     (minibuffer-with-setup-hook (if isearch-lazy-highlight
                                      #'minibuffer-lazy-highlight-setup
                                    #'ignore)
         (read-from-minibuffer "Something: "))


> Also I noticed that you changed the function 'isearch-lazy-count-display-function'
> to the hook 'lazy-count-update-hook', and this looks fine,
> I see no problem with this.
>
>> - Besides query-replace, I only added lazy highlight to
>>   isearch-edit-string for now.
>
> BTW, what is the relation between the minibuffer-lazy-highlight feature
> and another proposed feature that immediately updates the search in
> the buffer while editing the string in the minibuffer by isearch-edit-string?
> Can minibuffer-lazy-highlight be considered as a lightweight version of
> the buffer search from the minibuffer?

Well, there's a package for that on ELPA (isearch-mb), so extending
isearch-edit-string to do that seems superfluous now?

>> There are a few more we could add   (perhaps later),
>> such as `occur' and `keep-lines'.
>
> I tried (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook #'minibuffer-lazy-highlight-setup)
> in the minibuffer of 'occur' and others, and it works nicely.
> Maybe it could even semi-deprecate the package re-builder.el.
>
> Thanks for this generally usable feature.

By the way, this is a byproduct of that long discussion that led to
isearch-mb, so it was not all in vain :-).

>> - There's no customization variable to enable the minibuffer lazy
>>   highlight.  The rationale is that each command that will use it should
>>   define its own user option (or use an existing one).  For
>>   `isearch-edit-string' it's `isearch-lazy-highlight'; for
>>   `query-replace' it's `query-replace-lazy-highlight'; and so on.
>
> A common customizable option to enable this everywhere would be nice too.
> Maybe disabling is already possible by customizing
> 'minibuffer-lazy-count-format' to nil?  Then the checks for
> non-nil 'minibuffer-lazy-count-format' could be added to
> more places, such as to wrap the whole '(condition-case error'
> in query-replace-read-args with the 'when' condition, etc.

Yes, the user can set minibuffer-lazy-count-format to nil to get rid of
the lazy count.

Concerning query-replace, why would anyone want to have lazy highlight
during the perform-replace loop, but not earlier?  I'm not a fan of
adding a custom option here, not because it would be hard, but because
it seems totally unnecessary.

>> - As to the lazy count during `perform-replace': I would like to leave
>>   this for later.  In fact, I think the lazy highlight has some issues
>>   that need fixing beforehand.  For instance, if I replace "a" with
>>   "aba", then the "a"'s from the replacement text also get lazy
>>   highlighted.  We shouldn't refresh the lazy highlight during
>>   `preform-replace'.  Then adding lazy count on top should be easy.
>
> Patches welcome.
>
>>>> I guess this could be done.
>>>
>>> Maybe two separate hooks could be defined?  One highlights like
>>> lazy-highlight, and another counts like lazy-count does:
>>>
>>>   (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'isearch-read-with-highlight-setup)
>>>   (add-hook 'minibuffer-setup-hook 'isearch-read-with-count-setup)
>>
>> The highlight without counting can be achieved by binding a suitable new
>> variable.  Counting without highlight is not supported by isearch AFAIU.
>
> Counting without highlighting is only possible by redefining the function
> 'isearch-lazy-highlight-match' to a no-op function.