Re: Some further ideas for Isearch

[Augusto Stoffel <arstoffel@gmail.com>]

On Sun, 25 Apr 2021 at 20:36, Juri Linkov <juri@linkov.net> wrote:

>> Here are some further ideas for Isearch, partially inspired by the
>> alternative buffer search packages out there:
>
> Thanks for more ideas that hopefully will find a path to isearch.
>
>> Future history
>> --------------
>>
>> Pressing `C-s M-n M-n ...' could present a few useful search
>> candidates, controlled for instance by the
>> `isearch-forward-thing-at-point' variable.  This would be more
>> flexible and more mnemonic than the recently introduced
>> `isearch-forward-thing-at-point' command.
>
> The problem is that the isearch history is a ring,
> so maybe the users already expect that typing 'C-s M-n'
> should get the top element of the isearch ring.
>
> This is what 'M-n' bound to 'isearch-ring-advance' currently does
> to search for the next item in the search ring.

But the top element is the oldest, the next one to be forgotten, right?
Why would this be remotely as interesting than first seeing the region,
word, symbol, sexp at point?

Speaking of the search ring(s):  Now that the search mode is saved as
properties in the history elements, can we get rid of separate histories
for regexp and regular searches?  I see at least two reasons for this:

- If you use regexp search by default, it's very annoying to resume a
  previous symbol-at-point search.
- Given one regexp and one literal history item, you can't know which is
  oldest.

Now, of course you are going to say this needs to be a defcustom, so
I'm already going to ask: can it be on by default?

>
>> Resume canceled searches
>> ------------------------
>>
>> `C-s C-s' recovers the last history element, so it's more or less
>> equivalent to `C-s M-p'.  It would be nice to have the ability to
>> resume a canceled search, i.e., make `C-s C-s' look into
>> `isearch-cmds' instead.
>
> This feature was proposed in https://debbugs.gnu.org/11378#71

Should be easy to do.  But please, let's let `C-s C-s' resume the last
search, period, not the last search of the same mode as `C-s' normally
does.