making iswitchb the default

making iswitchb the default

[John Wiegley]

I cannot think of a reason why C-x b should not default to iswitchb in
21.4.  What do people think of that change?

John

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Miles Bader]

On Wed, Apr 14, 2004 at 02:32:43PM -0700, John Wiegley wrote:
> I cannot think of a reason why C-x b should not default to iswitchb in
> 21.4.  What do people think of that change?

I find iswitchb quite annoying, and I presume others may as well.
I think that's a good reason not to make it the default.

[It's _much_ `busier' than the default switch-buffer.]

-Miles
-- 
We are all lying in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars.
-Oscar Wilde

Re: making iswitchb the default

[John Wiegley]

Miles Bader <miles@gnu.org> writes:

> I find iswitchb quite annoying, and I presume others may as well.  I
> think that's a good reason not to make it the default.

That sounds like a good enough reason to leaves things as they are.

Ah, the joys of iswitchb -- and the pagan masses who do not
appreciate... :)

John

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Jason Rumney]

John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org> writes:

> Ah, the joys of iswitchb -- and the pagan masses who do not
> appreciate... :)

I think there is a bug in iswitchb, as I just tried it, and don't see
anything that could be described as a joy.

With C-x b, I get a descriptive prompt "Switch to buffer (Default
*scratch*): ", and completion works as I'd expect.

With iswitchb-buffer, I get a prompt of "iswitchb " without even a
colon telling me where the prompt ends. I type a couple of letters,
and press tab, the completions buffer that comes up lists all my
buffers, including those that don't match. If I type the full name of
a buffer and hit return, I get some random buffer instead.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Kim F. Storm]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > Ah, the joys of iswitchb -- and the pagan masses who do not
> > appreciate... :)
> 
> I think there is a bug in iswitchb, as I just tried it, and don't see
> anything that could be described as a joy.
> 
> With C-x b, I get a descriptive prompt "Switch to buffer (Default
> *scratch*): ", and completion works as I'd expect.
> 
> With iswitchb-buffer, I get a prompt of "iswitchb " without even a
> colon telling me where the prompt ends. I type a couple of letters,
> and press tab, the completions buffer that comes up lists all my
> buffers, including those that don't match. If I type the full name of
> a buffer and hit return, I get some random buffer instead.

Just FYI, ido doesn't have these problems.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Jason Rumney]

Kim F. Storm wrote:
> Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

 >> I type a couple of letters, and press tab, the completions buffer
 >> that comes up lists all my buffers, including those that don't match.
 >> If I type the full name of a buffer and hit return, I get some random
 >> buffer instead.

> Just FYI, ido doesn't have these problems.

It does have similarly strange completion results, though with ido I can 
see after some experimentation that if I type "a TAB", I get all buffers 
that contain "a" or "A" anywhere in their name, whereas iswitchb doesn't 
appear to read my input at all.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Kim F. Storm]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> Kim F. Storm wrote:
> > Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:
> 
>  >> I type a couple of letters, and press tab, the completions buffer
>  >> that comes up lists all my buffers, including those that don't match.
>  >> If I type the full name of a buffer and hit return, I get some random
>  >> buffer instead.
> 
> > Just FYI, ido doesn't have these problems.
> 
> It does have similarly strange completion results, though with ido I
> can see after some experimentation that if I type "a TAB", I get all
> buffers that contain "a" or "A" anywhere in their name, whereas
> iswitchb doesn't appear to read my input at all.

If you enter another TAB, ido shows all buffer names.  However, with
ido (and iswitchb), you really don't need TAB completion -- you have
the relevant completions listed already in the minibuffer, so using
TAB is an exception rather than the rule (especially if you know
which buffer or file name you are looking for).

Normally ido matches everywhere in the name.  If you prefer matching
from the beginning of the name (defeating part of the the advantage of
ido), do:

        (setq ido-enable-prefix t)

Ido can even do fuzzy matching so you don't have to type more than
necessary, e.g. if you have buffers:
         abcdefg, abcdefh, defgh
and want to select abcdefh, just type "ah" to select it.

Ido also automatically matches in the hidden buffers (or files) if
none the non-hidden buffers (or files) matches your entry.


-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Jason Rumney]

Kim F. Storm wrote:
> Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes: 
> 
>>>Just FYI, ido doesn't have these problems.
>>
>>It does have similarly strange completion results, though with ido I
>>can see after some experimentation that if I type "a TAB", I get all
>>buffers that contain "a" or "A" anywhere in their name, whereas
>>iswitchb doesn't appear to read my input at all.
> 
> If you enter another TAB, ido shows all buffer names.  However, with
> ido (and iswitchb), you really don't need TAB completion -- you have
> the relevant completions listed already in the minibuffer, so using
> TAB is an exception rather than the rule (especially if you know
> which buffer or file name you are looking for).

So the bug I am seeing in iswitchb seems to be that it doesn't always 
list the completions in the minibuffer, and in such cases it appears to 
randomly select a buffer when you hit return, regardless of what you type.

With ido, if I enter 1 TAB, I get a Completions buffer with the same 
contents as the minibuffer (which is useful when there are too many 
buffers to display in the minibuffer), but when I enter a second TAB, it 
acts like C-x o (other-window), placing my cursor back in the Window I
started from. This looks like a bug.

> Normally ido matches everywhere in the name.

I suspected that might be the case, and I guess that for advanced users 
once they get used to it, it might be faster. But for a new user, such 
behaviour is surprising, so I would not recommend ido to be enabled by 
default.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Kim F. Storm]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> With ido, if I enter 1 TAB, I get a Completions buffer with the same
> contents as the minibuffer (which is useful when there are too many
> buffers to display in the minibuffer), but when I enter a second TAB,
> it acts like C-x o (other-window), placing my cursor back in the
> Window I
> started from. This looks like a bug.

This doesn't happen to me.
If there is only one completion that matches, TAB selects that bffer.

> 
> > Normally ido matches everywhere in the name.
> 
> I suspected that might be the case, and I guess that for advanced
> users once they get used to it, it might be faster. But for a new
> user, such behaviour is surprising, so I would not recommend ido to be
> enabled by default.

I think the current default is fine.  Neither iswitchb nor ido should
be the default for reasons already discussed here.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 15 Apr 2004 13:03:00 +0100
> From: Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org>
> 
> I suspected that might be the case, and I guess that for advanced users 
> once they get used to it, it might be faster. But for a new user, such 
> behaviour is surprising, so I would not recommend ido to be enabled by 
> default.

What IMHO _would_ be useful and unsurprising to newbies is a mode that
drops a menu of buffer names and allows to select one by either a
mouse click or arrow keys and RET.  Such a mode, if it existed, could
indeed be enabled by default.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Fri, 16 Apr 2004 09:57:59 +0200
"Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> What IMHO _would_ be useful and unsurprising to newbies is a mode that
> drops a menu of buffer names and allows to select one by either a
> mouse click or arrow keys and RET.  Such a mode, if it existed, could
> indeed be enabled by default.

Isn't bs something like that? It is designed as a replacement for
list-buffers, IIRC.

                                                                Juanma

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Fri, 16 Apr 2004 13:13:12 +0200
> From: Juanma Barranquero <jmbarranquero@wke.es>
> 
> > What IMHO _would_ be useful and unsurprising to newbies is a mode that
> > drops a menu of buffer names and allows to select one by either a
> > mouse click or arrow keys and RET.  Such a mode, if it existed, could
> > indeed be enabled by default.
> 
> Isn't bs something like that? It is designed as a replacement for
> list-buffers, IIRC.

I meant for that to happen as part of a command that switches to
another buffer, like "C-x b", not as part of a command that displayes
the list of all buffers.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Juanma Barranquero]

On Sat, 17 Apr 2004 10:44:43 +0200, "Eli Zaretskii" <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> I meant for that to happen as part of a command that switches to
> another buffer, like "C-x b", not as part of a command that displayes
> the list of all buffers.

I don't understand. You said:

> What IMHO _would_ be useful and unsurprising to newbies is a mode that
> drops a menu of buffer names and allows to select one by either a
> mouse click or arrow keys and RET.

And, if you bind bs-show to C-x b or C-x C-b, that's *exactly* what you
can do: C-x b (or whatever), click or select with arrows, RET, and
you're on the desired buffer. In fact, bs-show provides also bs-next and
bs-prev to ease switching buffers withouth showing the list, and ways to
configure which buffers are displayed, and to switch between
configurations (so showing only "relevant" buffers, or all buffers, is
trivial).

Since I loaded bs.el in my .emacs years ago, I haven't used *any* other
command to switch buffers.

                                                           /L/e/k/t/u

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 18 Apr 2004 13:56:27 +0200
> From: Juanma Barranquero <lektu@mi.madritel.es>
> 
> > I meant for that to happen as part of a command that switches to
> > another buffer, like "C-x b", not as part of a command that displayes
> > the list of all buffers.
> 
> I don't understand. You said:
> 
> > What IMHO _would_ be useful and unsurprising to newbies is a mode that
> > drops a menu of buffer names and allows to select one by either a
> > mouse click or arrow keys and RET.
> 
> And, if you bind bs-show to C-x b or C-x C-b, that's *exactly* what you
> can do: C-x b (or whatever), click or select with arrows, RET, and
> you're on the desired buffer.

My bad: I'm not familiar with bs, so when you said that it is a
replacement for list-buffers, I thought that was all it did.  I didn't
know it also offers a replacement for "C-x b".  Sorry.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Juanma Barranquero]

On 18 Apr 2004 16:22:01 +0200, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@elta.co.il> wrote:

> I didn't
> know it also offers a replacement for "C-x b".  Sorry.

I think I didn't explain myself clearly.

bs does not include something exactly like switch-buffer, in the sense
of showing a list of buffers in the minibuffer and leting you choose
among them.

It does, however, include two functions, bs-cycle-next and
bs-cycle-previous, which allow to rotate among buffers and shows in the
minibuffer the next buffers in the buffer list (so you know how far you
are of the buffer you're looking for).

The main use of bs, though, is displaying a list of buffers in a small,
transitory window. In a way is like list-buffers, but is not that
different of what iswitchb-buffer or ido-switch-buffer do. Order of
buffers aside, you'd switch to the third buffer in the list like that:

C-x b C-s C-s RET       ; iswitchb-buffer
C-x b left left RET     ; ido-switch-buffer
C-x C-b down down RET   ; bs-show

so it's all a matter of whether you prefer to see the buffers as a list
in the minibuffer, or in a window. I prefer the later, and I suppose
some newbies would find it easier too (which is, I think, what you were
proposing, after all: a menu of buffer names, selectable with arrows or
mouse click).

                                                           /L/e/k/t/u

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Kai Grossjohann]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@elta.co.il> writes:

> My bad: I'm not familiar with bs, so when you said that it is a
> replacement for list-buffers, I thought that was all it did.  I didn't
> know it also offers a replacement for "C-x b".  Sorry.

bs.el is like electric-buffer-list, but without the electricity.  It
also provides buffer cycling commands, but now we have C-x <left> and
C-x <right> so that they are not needed anymore.

Kai

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Stephen Eglen]

 > I think there is a bug in iswitchb, as I just tried it, and don't see
 > anything that could be described as a joy.
 > 
 > With C-x b, I get a descriptive prompt "Switch to buffer (Default
 > *scratch*): ", and completion works as I'd expect.
 > 
 > With iswitchb-buffer, I get a prompt of "iswitchb " without even a
 > colon telling me where the prompt ends. I type a couple of letters,
 > and press tab, the completions buffer that comes up lists all my
 > buffers, including those that don't match. If I type the full name of
 > a buffer and hit return, I get some random buffer instead.

These are good reasons why iswitchb should not be default behaviour to
replace C-x b.  However I hope you have not found bugs in iswitchb.
To quote the top of the Commentary:

----------------------------------------------------------------------
;; As you type in a substring, the list of buffers currently matching
;; the substring is displayed as you type.  The list is ordered so
;; that the most recent buffers visited come at the start of the list.
;; The buffer at the start of the list will be the one visited when
;; you press return.  By typing more of the substring, the list is
----------------------------------------------------------------------

So, first off, the completions buffer is just showing you buffer names
matching the current substring you have typed.  Second, if you type
the full name of a buffer and hit return, usually (but not always, as
the *cvs*, *cvs<2>* example demonstrates) you should get the desired
buffer.  Certainly it should not be a random buffer!  If you still
find that, let me know as this is definitely a bug.

Thanks,
Stephen

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Jason Rumney]

Stephen Eglen wrote:

> These are good reasons why iswitchb should not be default behaviour to
> replace C-x b.  However I hope you have not found bugs in iswitchb.
> To quote the top of the Commentary:
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> ;; As you type in a substring, the list of buffers currently matching
> ;; the substring is displayed as you type.  The list is ordered so
> ;; that the most recent buffers visited come at the start of the list.
> ;; The buffer at the start of the list will be the one visited when
> ;; you press return.  By typing more of the substring, the list is
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> So, first off, the completions buffer is just showing you buffer names
> matching the current substring you have typed.

First off I do not see a Completions buffer, only after I type TAB. I 
get the same result on 2 computers running Windows 2000 and Windows XP 
with current CVS. I also get the same result in 21.3 on the computer I 
have in front of me now (with -q --no-site-file). Perhaps it is a bug 
that is specific to Windows, or the setting of completion-ignore-case.


> Second, if you type
> the full name of a buffer and hit return, usually (but not always, as
> the *cvs*, *cvs<2>* example demonstrates) you should get the desired
> buffer.  Certainly it should not be a random buffer!  If you still
> find that, let me know as this is definitely a bug.

I always seem to get the most recently selected buffer (ie, the one I 
would get with "C-x b RET" with default settings), regardless of what I 
type.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Stefan Daschek]

Jason Rumney <jasonr@gnu.org> writes:

> First off I do not see a Completions buffer, only after I type TAB. I
> get the same result on 2 computers running Windows 2000 and Windows XP
> with current CVS. I also get the same result in 21.3 on the computer I
> have in front of me now (with -q --no-site-file). Perhaps it is a bug
> that is specific to Windows, or the setting of completion-ignore-case.

WFM in Windows XP:

*) $ emacs -q --no-site-file
*) M-x iswitchb-default-keybindings
*) C-x b
*) Minibuffer shows: iswitch {*Messages*,*scratch*}

GNU Emacs 21.3.50.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2004-02-13


hth,
noniq

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Jason Rumney]

Stefan Daschek <noniq-usenet@noniq.at> writes:

> WFM in Windows XP:
> 
> *) $ emacs -q --no-site-file
> *) M-x iswitchb-default-keybindings
> *) C-x b
> *) Minibuffer shows: iswitch {*Messages*,*scratch*}

Apparently it is neccesary to call iswitchb-mode or
iswitchb-default-keybindings first, otherwise iswitchb-buffer does
not work. I have suggested to the author to document this and not
autoload the other functions.

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Alan Shutko]

John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org> writes:

> I cannot think of a reason why C-x b should not default to iswitchb in
> 21.4.  What do people think of that change?

I use that binding myself, but I can think of one reason not to make
the change.  iswitchb makes it hard to get to hidden buffers (buffers
whose name starts with a space).  

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - I am the rocks.
Don't care & don't have to - we're the Phone Company!

Re: making iswitchb the default

[David Kastrup]

John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org> writes:

> I cannot think of a reason why C-x b should not default to iswitchb in
> 21.4.  What do people think of that change?

Not much.  It makes it impossible to get at buffers starting with a
space, and it is close to impossible to persuade it you want to have a
buffer *cvs* when it would rather offer *cvs*<2> before that.  Type
*cvs* RET and it will still give you *cvs*<2>.  In particular when
there is also *cvs*<3>, it will give you alternatively *cvs*<2> and
*cvs*<3>, but not *cvs*.

And there are other ways in which it gets in the way without
providing really more functionality than C-x b.

I'd rather vote for file-name-shadow-mode to be enabled by default: it
is inobtrusive, intuitive and particularly helpful to beginners.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Stephen Eglen]

 > 
 > > I cannot think of a reason why C-x b should not default to iswitchb in
 > > 21.4.  What do people think of that change?

Thanks John for promoting the case for iswitchb!  But I think its easy
enough to enable for now, so I don't have a strong preference for it
to become default.

 > Not much.  It makes it impossible to get at buffers starting with a
 > space, and it is close to impossible to persuade it you want to have a
 > buffer *cvs* when it would rather offer *cvs*<2> before that.  Type
 > *cvs* RET and it will still give you *cvs*<2>.  In particular when
 > there is also *cvs*<3>, it will give you alternatively *cvs*<2> and
 > *cvs*<3>, but not *cvs*.

Just in case people don't know, both these issues can be addressed:

iswitchb-buffer-ignore's value is ("^ ") and so you can switch off the
mechanism that removes buffers beginning with space.

For the cvs example, if you do "*cvs* C-j" rather than RET, you will
get *cvs* if it exists; if it does not you will be asked whether you
want to create that buffer.

Best wishes,

Stephen (iswitchb author)

Re: making iswitchb the default

[David Kastrup]

Stephen Eglen <stephen@inf.ed.ac.uk> writes:

> Just in case people don't know, both these issues can be addressed:
> 
> iswitchb-buffer-ignore's value is ("^ ") and so you can switch off the
> mechanism that removes buffers beginning with space.
> 
> For the cvs example, if you do "*cvs* C-j" rather than RET, you will
> get *cvs* if it exists; if it does not you will be asked whether you
> want to create that buffer.

Both of these are highly non-obvious: you have to read the manual,
and they are not expected behavior at all.  Since we are talking
about a _default_ behavior here, this is rather relevant.

We should not exchange a default behavior from one that is easily
understandable without reading the manual to one that isn't.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: making iswitchb the default

[John Wiegley]

Stephen Eglen <stephen@inf.ed.ac.uk> writes:

> iswitchb-buffer-ignore's value is ("^ ") and so you can switch off
> the mechanism that removes buffers beginning with space.

Stephen, I also found that there is a C-a (show all) binding which is
currently disabled.  I re-enabled it for myself, and it has been
working fine.  How nice to select " *temp*" with C-x b once again!

Any reason why this feature is currently off?

John

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Juanma Barranquero]

On 15 Apr 2004 00:06:51 +0200
David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org> wrote:

> I'd rather vote for file-name-shadow-mode to be enabled by default: it
> is inobtrusive, intuitive and particularly helpful to beginners.

Yeah. It's a pity it doesn't work with ido-mode :(

                                                                Juanma

Re: making iswitchb the default

[Kim F. Storm]

John Wiegley <johnw@gnu.org> writes:

> I cannot think of a reason why C-x b should not default to iswitchb in
> 21.4.  What do people think of that change?

One objection is that some users might prefer ido instead :-)

But seriously, I don't see any reason to make that change.

-- 
Kim F. Storm <storm@cua.dk> http://www.cua.dk