icomplete-mode vs. iswitchb

[Alex Schroeder <alex@gnu.org>]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

> Iswitchb is marked obsolete in the trunk: you can get the same
> functionality with icomplete-mode.

How does one achieve that? When I tried icomplete-mode, I was unable to
figure out how to do that.

(progn
  (iswitchb-mode 0)
  (icomplete-mode 1)
  (get-buffer-create "mytesta")
  (get-buffer-create "mytestb")
  (get-buffer-create "yourtesta")
  (get-buffer-create "yourtestb"))

1. How to pick the first item on the list without typing a lot? I want
   to type a substring RET to pick the most recent buffer. With
   icomplete-mode I type t e s t TAB and get test*. TAB gets me a
   *Completion* buffer at which point I need to read all of them, look
   for the bold characters, pick the right one (a), find the key on the
   keyboard, press that, and even worse, hit C-a and type additional
   characters (my) at the beginingg of the string in order to switch to
   mytesta.

2. How to quickly rotate through the list? I want to type t e s t C-s
   C-s C-s or equivalent to pick the third item on the list. With
   icomplete-mode I feel like trying M-p, M-n, <up>, <down>, <left>,
   <right>...

A generic completion should also sort the entry by "most recently used"
and I'm not sure how icomplete can do this. iswitchb-mode still feels a
lot more useful to me.

I'm back to using iswitchb-mode...

(progn
  (iswitchb-mode 1)
  (icomplete-mode 0))