Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> Do we want to go down this path?
>
> Maybe we do.  Are there good alternatives, when there are so many
> non-orthogonal options?

I have a good alternative for swiper.el (my isearch-replacement package
in GELPA).

Unlike the current isearch, which recently started displaying
"Char-fold I-search: " instead of the much better default "I-search: ",
swiper displays only "97 pattern: ", where "97" is the current number
of matches.

To see more options, I can press "C-o" to bring up a hydra - a keyboard
oriented menu, which is also a package of mine in GELPA. Pressing "C-o"
again hides this information.

I attach 3 screenshots.
First one: I only press "C-s" (`swiper') to get a minimal interface.
Second one: I press "C-o" to show me the options panel, which also
doubles as a command-mode:

- "C-n" becomes "j"
- "C-p" becomes "k"
- "M-<" becomes "h"
- "M->" becomes "l"

It's possible to toggle the matching function with "m", and the state
will be re-displayed to let the user know that the matcher has changed.
It's possible to re-size the minibuffer with "<" and ">".

Third one: I've re-sized the minibuffer to become smaller with "<<" and
changed the matcher to fuzzy with "m" (notice the number of candidates
grew from 97 to 543).

I could now dismiss the menu with "i" or "C-o" and go back to a minimal
interface, with the changes that I made.