Re: Feature request : Tab-completion for 'shell-comand'

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

    > I have doubts that this is uniformly the best thing to do.
    > I think that the best thing to do depends on the message:
    > some messages are good to display at the end of the minibuffer,
    > as in `minibuffer-message', and some are better just omitted
    > while in the minibuffer.

    Currently messages displayed when the minibuffer is active don't get
    omitted.  They just obscure the minibuffer content from the user.

The message I replied to showed an example of code that omits
the message when the minibuffer is active.

    With the patch I sent (that changes `message' to call `minibuffer-message'
    in the active minibuffer), Isearch in the minibuffer works mostly without
    changes,

I am surprised.  How does it do that?  If `message' calls
`minibuffer-message', how come that doesn't cause all the isearch
messages to appear after the minibuffer text?

	     but there is a difference on failed Isearch: without this patch
    the Isearch error message overwrites the minibuffer content, but with this
    patch it appends the error message to the end of the minibuffer, e.g.

    I-search backward: foo [Failing I-search backward: bar]

I am not sure how to interpret that, because I do not know what foo
and bar stand for.  But it cannot be right to have two isearch
messages at once.  Whether the search succeeds or fails, its message
should be displayed in the same place, in the same way.

    Otherwise, we could just fix this particular case not to use
    `minibuffer-message'.

If `message' automatically calls `minibuffer-message' when the minibuffer
is active, how is it possible to fix one case not to do that?