bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

[bcclaro]

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> I've switched from ido to fido and I'm missing the feature of being
> able to open recently closed buffers that ido-mode provided with
> ido-use-virtual-buffers.

From
https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/72619/see-virtual-recent-buffers-when-switching-with-fido
.

Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:

> Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
> buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?

I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.

-- Bruno (@odanoburu)

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bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

[João Távora]

On Thu, Dec 7, 2023 at 3:21 PM bcclaro <bcclaro@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > I've switched from ido to fido and I'm missing the feature of being
> > able to open recently closed buffers that ido-mode provided with
> > ido-use-virtual-buffers.
>
> From https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/72619/see-virtual-recent-buffers-when-switching-with-fido.

This almost surely isn't supported in fido, and I don't
understand fully what the feature does.  I could give
ido a shot, but would likely get lost in its options so
it's better if you could explain what it does, if possible
without concepts such as "virtual buffer", so that more
people in this list can follow along.  Is a "closed buffer"
a "killed buffer"?

Keep in mind fido is a relatively poor emulation of ido
(hence "fake ido").  It's more of a middle-of-the-road
between ido and Emacs's vanilla completion.  Fairly close
to ido in what regards typing patterns and filtering
candidates, much closer to vanilla when it comes to the
actions taken on candidates.

> Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:
>
> > Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
> > buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?
>
> I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.

Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
and maybe more.  But I don't understand exactly what the
feature does (though here it seems simpler than in the previous
one).

João

bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 08/12/2023 13:27, João Távora wrote:
>> Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:
>>
>>> Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
>>> buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?
>> I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.
> Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
> argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
> so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
> and maybe more.  But I don't understand exactly what the
> feature does (though here it seems simpler than in the previous
> one).

It's the same feature.

I think ido-use-virtual-buffers's docstring has a good explanation.

So, two parts:

- Using entries from recentf in the list of buffers to switch to.
- Color them differently somehow.

bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

[João Távora]

On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 12:29 PM Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev> wrote:
>
> On 08/12/2023 13:27, João Távora wrote:
> >> Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:
> >>
> >>> Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
> >>> buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?
> >> I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.
> > Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
> > argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
> > so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
> > and maybe more.  But I don't understand exactly what the
> > feature does (though here it seems simpler than in the previous
> > one).
>
> It's the same feature.
>
> I think ido-use-virtual-buffers's docstring has a good explanation.
>
> So, two parts:
>
> - Using entries from recentf in the list of buffers to switch to.
> - Color them differently somehow.

So including files in a buffer list?  Seems odd, but then ido
had a lot of oddities.

Anyway, I think what I miss most about Ido also solves the
problem of going to recently visited files.  In Ido, I could
ido-find-file, type a fragment of a file name and then M-p to
cycle between those old files that match that pattern

In vanilla completion, icomplete, etc (and this includes fido-mode),
M-p doesn't do this search.  The workflow for this appears to be M-r
for previous-matching-history-element but that asks me to input
a regexp, which is not necessarily the completion style I have
configured.  Even when I do that, it doesn't seem to work very well,
doesn't seem to go into the recentf list, or at least is confusing
enough that I don't bother trying it.  But I still miss that feature
after many years away from Ido.

So, if I were to work on something for Fido, it would be that
feature (which, importantly, doesn't mix buffers with files in
the same bag).

João

bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 08/12/2023 15:22, João Távora wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 12:29 PM Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev> wrote:
>>
>> On 08/12/2023 13:27, João Távora wrote:
>>>> Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:
>>>>
>>>>> Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
>>>>> buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?
>>>> I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.
>>> Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
>>> argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
>>> so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
>>> and maybe more.  But I don't understand exactly what the
>>> feature does (though here it seems simpler than in the previous
>>> one).
>>
>> It's the same feature.
>>
>> I think ido-use-virtual-buffers's docstring has a good explanation.
>>
>> So, two parts:
>>
>> - Using entries from recentf in the list of buffers to switch to.
>> - Color them differently somehow.
> 
> So including files in a buffer list?  Seems odd, but then ido
> had a lot of oddities.

Quite.

> Anyway, I think what I miss most about Ido also solves the
> problem of going to recently visited files.  In Ido, I could
> ido-find-file, type a fragment of a file name and then M-p to
> cycle between those old files that match that pattern

This sounds useful, but it's not something that I do, personally. It 
takes more keypresses and doesn't match the way I think about files and 
projects anyway.

The "virtual buffers" thing sells itself with fast access: you recall 
the name of a previously open file, and just visit it as if the buffer 
already existed. If the base file name is unique enough, that's the 
quickest way to do that. Otherwise, you have to double-check the 
directory it's in.

bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

[bcclaro]

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> Is a "closed buffer" a "killed buffer"?

Indeed. So the feature request would be to keep killed buffers as options
to switch to, the idea being that buffers recently used are more likely to
be opened than other buffers. The same idea motivates the recentf feature
request, the difference being that recent buffers might mean buffers that
were opened on a previous Emacs run.

This latter feature seems to subsume the former, but I don't know how the
actual implementation goes since I use fido-mode — I just felt like it
would be nice to have recent files and buffers as completion candidates to
commands like find-file and switch-to-buffer. Expanding on this, when I am
working on a project, I just use project-find-file to find files that are
not in the same directory my current buffer is in faster. But if I want to
edit a configuration file somewhere, or a file in /tmp, it takes longer to
find it, which is something I'm hoping this feature will help alleviate.

> Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
> argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
> so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
> and maybe more.

Yes, that makes sense to me.

> So including files in a buffer list?  Seems odd, but then ido had a lot
of oddities.

> So, if I were to work on something for Fido, it would be that
> feature (which, importantly, doesn't mix buffers with files in
> the same bag).

It is indeed. The feature you describe would make me happy; if I killed the
buffer for a file I wouldn't mind find-file'ing the file again if I had
this feature to help.

On Fri, 8 Dec 2023 at 10:23, João Távora <joaotavora@gmail.com> wrote:

> On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 12:29 PM Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev> wrote:
> >
> > On 08/12/2023 13:27, João Távora wrote:
> > >> Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:
> > >>
> > >>> Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
> > >>> buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?
> > >> I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.
> > > Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
> > > argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
> > > so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
> > > and maybe more.  But I don't understand exactly what the
> > > feature does (though here it seems simpler than in the previous
> > > one).
> >
> > It's the same feature.
> >
> > I think ido-use-virtual-buffers's docstring has a good explanation.
> >
> > So, two parts:
> >
> > - Using entries from recentf in the list of buffers to switch to.
> > - Color them differently somehow.
>
> So including files in a buffer list?  Seems odd, but then ido
> had a lot of oddities.
>
> Anyway, I think what I miss most about Ido also solves the
> problem of going to recently visited files.  In Ido, I could
> ido-find-file, type a fragment of a file name and then M-p to
> cycle between those old files that match that pattern
>
> In vanilla completion, icomplete, etc (and this includes fido-mode),
> M-p doesn't do this search.  The workflow for this appears to be M-r
> for previous-matching-history-element but that asks me to input
> a regexp, which is not necessarily the completion style I have
> configured.  Even when I do that, it doesn't seem to work very well,
> doesn't seem to go into the recentf list, or at least is confusing
> enough that I don't bother trying it.  But I still miss that feature
> after many years away from Ido.
>
> So, if I were to work on something for Fido, it would be that
> feature (which, importantly, doesn't mix buffers with files in
> the same bag).
>
> João
>

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