Re: [PATCH] Support "\n" in icomplete-separator

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> Date: Wed, 11 Nov 2020 17:12:21 +0000
> From: Gregory Heytings <ghe@sdf.org>
> cc: martin rudalics <rudalics@gmx.at>, spacibba@aol.com,
>         monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, andreyk.mad@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> 
> > I'd say this much more bluntly: Emacs's minibuffer input was not 
> > designed for showing too many completion candidates, let alone show them 
> > vertically arranged.  It was even less designed to display the 
> > candidates or other hints in overlays.
> 
> Well, Emacs wasn't designed to manage emails or browse the web either ;-) 

Yes, it was.  Those applications basically display text with a few
images, something that Emacs 21 was definitely designed to support.

Don't misunderstand me: Emacs _can_ display what icomplete-vertical
and similar features ask it, it just cannot do that well, and the
results are not pretty.  If you read the code that is involved, the
reasons are acutely evident, and it is important for me to make these
conclusions public and known to all, because many people believe
there's no limit to what one can do with Emacs display features.
Well, there is.

> Did you try Ivy?

Yes.

> And, FWIW, I'm a user, and I do not expect a "very different way of 
> showing completion candidates".

Neither am I.  icomplete-vertical and friends weren't written for the
likes of us.