Completion details and vertical completion format

Completion details and vertical completion format

[Arash Esbati]

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Hi all,

I have a question reg. the combination of `completions-detailed' and
`completions-format'.  Steps:

  • emacs -Q
  • eval (setq completions-detailed t)
  • Type 'C-h f skip-TAB' which looks like this:

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  • eval (setq completions-format 'vertical)
  • Type 'C-h f skip-TAB' now looks like this:

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The second version is very hard to read.  Is this the intended behavior?
I tested this with Emacs 29 (d34fc7b7aa); Emacs 28 behaves the same way.

Best, Arash

Re: Completion details and vertical completion format

[Juri Linkov]

> I have a question reg. the combination of `completions-detailed' and
> `completions-format'.  Steps:
>
>   • emacs -Q
>   • eval (setq completions-detailed t)
>   • Type 'C-h f skip-TAB' which looks like this:
>
>   • eval (setq completions-format 'vertical)
>   • Type 'C-h f skip-TAB' now looks like this:
>
> The second version is very hard to read.  Is this the intended behavior?

Could you please explain what did you expect to see.

Re: Completion details and vertical completion format

[Arash Esbati]

Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> writes:

> Could you please explain what did you expect to see.

Ideally, Emacs switches to `one-column' format automatically when
completion candidates have long annotations and keep `vertical' for
short or no annotations.

Best, Arash

Re: Completion details and vertical completion format

[Gregory Heytings]

>> Could you please explain what did you expect to see.
>
> Ideally, Emacs switches to `one-column' format automatically when 
> completion candidates have long annotations and keep `vertical' for 
> short or no annotations.
>

Even with long annotations there can be enough room for two columns, if 
the font is small enough.

That being said, currently the options completions-detailed and 
completions-format are incompatible: completions-format vertical has 
either no effet (with a small enough font), or a wrong effect (the one on 
your screenshots).

Re: Completion details and vertical completion format

[Gregory Heytings]

>>> Could you please explain what did you expect to see.
>> 
>> Ideally, Emacs switches to `one-column' format automatically when 
>> completion candidates have long annotations and keep `vertical' for 
>> short or no annotations.
>
> Even with long annotations there can be enough room for two columns, if 
> the font is small enough.
>
> That being said, currently the options completions-detailed and 
> completions-format are incompatible: completions-format vertical has 
> either no effet (with a small enough font), or a wrong effect (the one 
> on your screenshots).
>

Arash, does the patch below fix your problem?  The current code assumes 
"at least 2 columns", but that's wrong when completion candidates become 
long enough.

diff --git a/lisp/minibuffer.el b/lisp/minibuffer.el
index 6bb0fa3ae9..5faa3c8d4e 100644
--- a/lisp/minibuffer.el
+++ b/lisp/minibuffer.el
@@ -2025,8 +2025,8 @@ completion--insert-strings
  	   (window (get-buffer-window (current-buffer) 0))
  	   (wwidth (if window (1- (window-width window)) 79))
  	   (columns (min
-		     ;; At least 2 columns; at least 2 spaces between columns.
-		     (max 2 (/ wwidth (+ 2 length)))
+		     ;; At least 2 spaces between columns.
+		     (max 1 (/ wwidth (+ 2 length)))
  		     ;; Don't allocate more columns than we can fill.
  		     ;; Windows can't show less than 3 lines anyway.
  		     (max 1 (/ (length strings) 2))))

Re: Completion details and vertical completion format

[Arash Esbati]

Gregory Heytings <gregory@heytings.org> writes:

> Arash, does the patch below fix your problem?  The current code
> assumes "at least 2 columns", but that's wrong when completion
> candidates become long enough.

Thanks for looking at this.  Your patch fixes the issue here, I've tried
it with different use cases I have, also with the external package
'marginalia', and it works.

Best, Arash

Re: Completion details and vertical completion format

[Gregory Heytings]

>> Arash, does the patch below fix your problem?  The current code assumes 
>> "at least 2 columns", but that's wrong when completion candidates 
>> become long enough.
>
> Thanks for looking at this.  Your patch fixes the issue here, I've tried 
> it with different use cases I have, also with the external package 
> 'marginalia', and it works.
>

Thanks for checking.  Now fixed on master.