Re: Q: Is there a built-in way to read multiple file names?

[Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>]

> From: Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>
> Cc: mardani29@yahoo.es, emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Sat, 13 Jul 2024 14:15:56 +0000
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > Basically, present a Dired-like list of files and let the users mark
> > the files they want to select.  Many GUI programs show file-selection
> > dialogs, which allow selection of more than one file, and that is what
> > I had in mind.
> 
> Will something like
> 
> ------------- dired-completion-mode -----------------
> [candidates]
> -rw-r--r--  1 yantar92 yantar92   936 Jun 25 10:22 CONTRIBUTE.org
> -rw-r--r--  1 yantar92 yantar92 35151 Jun 25 10:22 COPYING
> ------------------- minibuffer ------------------------
> Choose files: CO
> 
> work?

Why do you need the minibuffer part "Choose files: CO"? why not simply
let users mark the selected files using Dired mark commands?

> Later, users can go back to minibuffer and change the input, narrowing
> to a potentially different set of files:
> 
> ------------- dired-completion-mode -----------------
> [selected files]
> -rw-r--r--  1 yantar92 yantar92 35151 Jun 25 10:22 COPYING <MARKED>
> [candidates]
> drwxr-xr-x  8 yantar92 yantar92  4096 Jul 13 16:04 .git
> -rw-r--r--  1 yantar92 yantar92  1044 Jun 25 10:22 .gitignore
> -rw-r--r--  1 yantar92 yantar92    95 Jun 25 10:22 .gitmodules
> ------------------- minibuffer ------------------------
> Choose files: git

I think the minibuffer part is over-engineering it.  Dired has all the
functionality you need, including the ability to go to different
directories etc.  There's no need to invoke completion-like UIs, which
basically all assume the file names have common beginnings.  This
assumption is a limitation when selecting multiple files.

> Let's focus on selecting multiple files via completion.

How did "completion" enter the picture?  The original question was
about ways to select multiple files, which is much wider and more
general than just completing on file names.  When the user needs to
select a file, completion is just a means of saving them some typing.
That idea basically becomes irrelevant when users need to select
several files whose names might not have anything in common.  GUI
applications have solved this problem long ago, so why should Emacs
insist on inventing its own idiosyncratic solution?