Re: improving query-replace and query-replace-regexp

[Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org>]

On Thu, Jun 03, 2004 at 02:57:57PM -0400, Stefan Monnier wrote:
> You just need to tweak replace.el's messages so that they are displayed
> differently when working in the minibuffer.  They could use the same trick
> used in completion commands:  [Complete but not unique].
> 
> I think many places that use message (or minibuffer-message) could
> advantageously use a function that calls either message or
> minibuffer-message depending on the context.

I long ago (during Gerd's reign) advanced a patch that put messages in a
little appended " [...]" box while you were in the minibuffer.  I thought it
made using the minibuffer _much_ more pleasant in the presence of errors; the
current behavior (were messages _replace_ the minibuffer text you're still
entering, for a short period of time!) is pretty annoying, and I imagine must
be very confusing for newbies.

There were a few glitches with that patch in rare circumstances (mostly to do
with quail input I think), though, and I never got around to making a more
robust version and it sort of ended up in the "complete someday pile" of
patches...

This is something I'd like to revisit, but I guess it's an "after the
release" thing... :-)

-Miles
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