From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Richard Stallman Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Usability suggestion : completion for M-: Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:34 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87ejaei4iz.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <87hcf7r7vl.fsf@jurta.org> <003001c886f5$366f4330$0600a8c0@us.oracle.com> <874pb7ikt7.fsf@jurta.org> <000501c8873d$4ff68550$0600a8c0@us.oracle.com> <000701c88785$bd26dce0$0600a8c0@us.oracle.com> <87d4puxx2b.fsf@bzg.ath.cx> Reply-To: rms@gnu.org NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-15 X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1205781414 27923 80.91.229.12 (17 Mar 2008 19:16:54 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Mon, 17 Mar 2008 19:16:54 +0000 (UTC) Cc: bzg@altern.org, emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Mon Mar 17 20:17:23 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JbKpm-0005RA-Ij for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Mar 2008 20:17:23 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JbKpC-0002hg-Fr for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:46 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JbKp8-0002fL-07 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:42 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JbKp3-0002Zq-Dj for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:41 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JbKp3-0002ZP-8H for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:37 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([140.186.70.10]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JbKp3-0000hB-5X for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:37 -0400 Original-Received: from rms by fencepost.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.67) (envelope-from ) id 1JbKp0-0007fc-2K; Mon, 17 Mar 2008 15:16:34 -0400 In-reply-to: (message from Stefan Monnier on Sun, 16 Mar 2008 22:52:51 -0400) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:92841 Archived-At: For what it's worth, I'm a bit annoyed by Emacs's inconsistent use of TAB: in minibuffers, TAB behaves like in terminals to mean "complete", where in normal buffers it usually means "indent". There aren't enough convenient keys, so we have to do this overloading. But of course, "indent" can also make sense in minibuffers, It can make sense, but it is not very useful in minibuffers. We wouldn't recommend writing nontrivial Lisp code in a minibuffer, for instance. "complete" also makes a lot of sense in normal buffers. Yes, so we use M-TAB for that. It isn't perfectly elegant, but I think it is the best solution available given the constraints of the keyboard. I have used for many years commands that do both bound to TAB: typically my TAB first tries to indent, and if the indentation code didn't make any change then TAB tries to complete. I think that would be unpredictable and therefore inconvenient.