Re: Question about completion behavior

[Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net>]

> I just added a new branch feature/completions-customs.

Thank you.  I hope these small steps that add new options
will gradually place the default completion UI on a par with
modern completion packages.

One question - please explain what values of completion-auto-help
nil/t/lazy/visible/always now do in these cases that you posted earlier:

  1. no unique        (shows or update completions)
  2. unique common    (complete-common and UPDATE completions)
  3. unique candidate (complete and hides completion)
  4. unique common but completion is a valid entry (complete-common and hides completion)

> The changes there are minimal and finished in my opinion.  Whenever any
> of the maintainers decide they can correct, fix, or merge into
> master. (there is a small issue with the reference in the manual, so
> please fix it, but I don't have any more time)

I fixed these and some other issues in the branch.

> The changes include the max-height for completion window, a
> completions-highlight-mode and the new values for completion-auto-help.

Why not highlight the completions by default?  Unlike other changes,
highlighting doesn't change the previous behavior.

> I didn't include the zcomplete-mode because I am not sure how to name it
> and didn't receive any feedback except from Juri.  In total it is 53
> lines and provides an interaction similar to zsh (as explained before)
> which may be very suitable for new users.

I'm still unsure about this mode.  It's unclear what is the answer
to the main question: should it select the completion buffer or not?

I'll soon post a patch to allows navigation in the completion buffer
without selecting it, i.e. from the minibuffer.  This will handle
the problem of self-inserting keys that will continue working
in the minibuffer.  When this will prove to be insufficient,
then we could add new mode to auto-select the completions buffer.
But then why don't just use the recently added completion-auto-select?

> Apart from that I am wondering if it makes sense to add an option to
> propertise/configure the Initial line in the Completions buffer (there
> is one to remove the help, but not the other)

Do you mean completion-show-help whose nil doesn't remove
text "Possible completions are:"?

> (for example to remove it or add properties like intangible, a face etc)
> could we also add a sort of counter there to indicate the total number
> of candidates?

Good idea.