Wanting to add drop down menus to a major mode

["Mike Garcia" <mike_g@binarywave.com>]

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Hello,

Emacs is my favorite IDE and I use it all the time.  I'd like to extend it some and was wondering if I could get some ideas on what it would take to add drop down menus to the Python-mode (and other modes that I work in too) in order to create auto-completion of callable objects.  I'm no IDE expert but I think this would be really handy for me and probably others too.  

Essentially if I was to type --

  some_instance.some_func()

when I type the '.' (period) I'd like a popup menu to be displayed with the potential callable objects from which I could select one.  

I gather that this will require the buffer to know what callables are available for a particular class.  I think this means that for example in Python-mode, Emacs (on importing of a particular Python module) could scan a module for all the classes and functions available for those classes and retain collections of these callables.  I'm not sure how I could get Emacs to know that a certain 'symbol' equated to a particular class but, the mode would have to be able to do that.  For example:

    aKlass = MyClass()    -----  the mode will have to know that aKlass is an instance of MyClass and therefore can call all its methods.  


If anyone knows whether this has been done please let me know before I embark down the path.  Any advice you have regarding this will be much appreciated.  

Sincerely,
Fellow emacsian,
Mike Garcia

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