From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: =?utf-8?Q?=C3=93scar_Fuentes?= Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Current mode command discovery Date: Sun, 14 Feb 2021 22:39:10 +0100 Message-ID: <87zh06gwht.fsf@telefonica.net> References: <87v9aubm96.fsf@gnus.org> <83a6s6bkrg.fsf@gnu.org> <87czx2ifyp.fsf@telefonica.net> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="13677"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/28.0.50 (gnu/linux) To: emacs-devel@gnu.org Cancel-Lock: sha1:WHJFZJyko06nSNYnLBHZpHsGW68= Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Sun Feb 14 22:40:05 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lBP7d-0003UZ-JA for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 22:40:05 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:57214 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lBP7c-0001sm-Lu for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:40:04 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:45962) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lBP6s-0001Ok-T2 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:39:18 -0500 Original-Received: from ciao.gmane.io ([116.202.254.214]:35970) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1lBP6r-0003kj-1S for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 16:39:18 -0500 Original-Received: from list by ciao.gmane.io with local (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1lBP6p-0002YZ-2Y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Sun, 14 Feb 2021 22:39:15 +0100 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ Received-SPF: pass client-ip=116.202.254.214; envelope-from=ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane-mx.org; helo=ciao.gmane.io X-Spam_score_int: -16 X-Spam_score: -1.7 X-Spam_bar: - X-Spam_report: (-1.7 / 5.0 requ) BAYES_00=-1.9, HEADER_FROM_DIFFERENT_DOMAINS=0.249, SPF_HELO_NONE=0.001, SPF_PASS=-0.001 autolearn=no autolearn_force=no X-Spam_action: no action X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.23 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "Emacs-devel" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.devel:264785 Archived-At: Alan Mackenzie writes: >> Listing the irrelevant commands would only serve to confuse and overload >> the user. > > For the way I use M-x, I absolutely need what you call "irrelevant" > commands. Suggesting that these "confuse and overload" me is not a nice > thing to do. How often do you need to consult a command about foo-mode while working on a buffer with baz-mode ? >> Those who insist on using M-x to discover things while working on >> random buffers (something that seems quite bizarre to me, to be honest) >> still can disable the filtering or, better, learn to use the Emacs help >> system. > > Ditto for this paragraph. My memory is imperfect, and that includes > memory of command names. I routinely find exact names from hazy half > memories by typing in M-x, the bits I think I remember, the occasional > asterisk, and hit the TAB key. This works reasonably well. And for this > process, I don't want to have to switch to, or create a "relevant" > buffer. I will certainly be disabling this filtering. As for learning > to use the help system, that's hardly a serious suggestion. Why using M-x is more convenient for you than using C-h a, C-h f or some other facility? I'm trying to understand the mindset of those like you that use M-x for exploring features or remembering commands. I use M-x for both purposes all the time, but almost always I want to do something with that command, which implies that I'm working on a context where the command that I'm interested on will pass the filter. Thus, the filtering is a great improvement. >> >> This would only be commands that have been marked for the current major >> >> mode and any active minor modes, I guess? > >> > What about primitives? they are relevant in any mode. > >> Here I think that Lars is proposing an special command that just shows >> those commands marked as related to the current active modes. Regular >> M-x will still show the commands which are relevant in general, in >> addition to the specific ones. > > There are around 11,380 commands in just the Emacs Lisp sources. I'm not > sure it's practical to classify that number of commands as relevant for > all the scenarios the new feature is intended for. It's a great deal of > work. Almost all commands fall into two categories: specific to some mode (which means that they only work if the mode is active) or general. I see no problem classifying the commands that way. I'm skeptic about other uses for the filtering that were mentioned, such as adding predicates that test if a region is active, etc. That looks as anti-feature to me. There are times when a menu entry should be hidden and times where it should be grayed out (inactive). Likewise, a command should not be hidden when it is related to the current context but a detail makes it inapplicable. Just allow it to be invoked and throw an user-error informing the user about what's wrong.