RE: [External] : Re: master 431f8ff1e38: * lisp/imenu.el: Support more values for imenu-flatten (bug#70846)

[Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> Here is a new variable that helps to disambiguate completions with
> the same name but different annotations by using text properties:

> (defcustom completion-allow-text-properties nil
>   "Non-nil means `choose-completion' should not
> discard text properties.
> This also affects `completing-read' and any of the
> functions that do
> minibuffer input with completion."
>  :type 'boolean :version "30.1" :group 'completion)
___

FWIW, since 2008 Icicles has had this feature.

I tried several times, unsuccessfully, to
persuade vanilla Emacs to add it, i.e., to
allow the result of completion to keep text
properties, unless a user option says to
strip them.

IOW, the default behavior in Icicles is
to _keep_, not to remove, text properties.

Emacs should do the same, in order to, as
you say, let code "disambiguate completions
with the same name".  Hard to believe this
hasn't even been possible till now, let
alone been done by default.
___

`icicle-unpropertize-completion-result-flag' is a variable
defined in `icicles-opt.el'.

Its value is nil

Documentation:

Non-nil means strip text properties from the completion result.
Set or bind this option to non-nil only if you need to ensure, for
some other library, that the string returned by `completing-read' and
`read-file-name' has no text properties.

Typically, you will not use a non-nil value.  Internal text properties
added by Icicles are always removed anyway.  A non-nil value lets you
also remove properties such as `face'.
___

As for whether a user option is appropriate: yes.
But I don't take the view that no code should
ever bind a user option.