Question to completion

Question to completion

[Klaus Berndl]

Suppose i have s command like follows:

(defun offer-some-choices ()
  (interactive)
  (completing-read "Select a name: " '(("Klaus" . t) ("Berndl" . t))))

Then this displays in the minibuffer "Select a name: " and then wait for input
from the user.

How can i achieve that always - *without* the user has to hit TAB - the
possible completions are displayed immediately?
Or with other words: How to simulate that the user has already pressed TAB as
often as necessary to display all possible completions? Best would be if the
longest common substring of all possible completions is displayed immediately
in the minibuffer (OK, this i could precompute with `try-completion' and then
insert as argument INITIAL-INPUT - but AFAIK this is deprecated?!).

But most important is that the user has not to hit any key to see all possible
completions. How to do this with completing-read - or is there a better way to
do this?

What i want is to (mis?)use the completion-feature of Emacs to offer the user
some choices which he can select either via mouse or via keyboard from the
minibuffer.

Thanks a lot in advance!
Klaus

-- 
Klaus Berndl			mailto: klaus.berndl@sdm.de
sd&m AG				http://www.sdm.de
software design & management	
Carl-Wery-Str. 42, 81739 Muenchen, Germany
Tel +49 89 63812-392, Fax -220

Re: Question to completion

[Klaus Berndl]

Until now i have written a first solution which does what i want:

(defun offer-some-choices ()
  (interactive)
  ;; With these 3 TAB-events we ensure that
  ;; 1. The longest possible common substring is display in the minibuffer
  ;; 2. All possible completions are displayed
  (setq unread-command-events (cons 9 unread-command-events))
  (setq unread-command-events (cons 9 unread-command-events))
  (setq unread-command-events (cons 9 unread-command-events))
  (let ((file (completing-read
               "Select a file: "
               '(("c:/Programme/emacs-21/site-lisp/semantic/semanticdb-test.el" . t)
                 ("c:/Programme/emacs-21/site-lisp/ecb-navigate.el" . t)))))
    (message "Choosen file: %s" file)))

Now my question: Is this completely an ugly hack and what to do to write this
better?

Thanks for help,
Klaus

On 08 Nov 2003, Klaus Berndl wrote:

>  
>  Suppose i have s command like follows:
>  
>  (defun offer-some-choices ()
>    (interactive)
>    (completing-read "Select a name: " '(("Klaus" . t) ("Berndl" . t))))
>  
>  Then this displays in the minibuffer "Select a name: " and then wait for
>  input from the user.
>  
>  How can i achieve that always - *without* the user has to hit TAB - the
>  possible completions are displayed immediately? Or with other words: How to
>  simulate that the user has already pressed TAB as often as necessary to
>  display all possible completions? Best would be if the longest common
>  substring of all possible completions is displayed immediately in the
>  minibuffer (OK, this i could precompute with `try-completion' and then
>  insert as argument INITIAL-INPUT - but AFAIK this is deprecated?!).
>  
>  But most important is that the user has not to hit any key to see all
>  possible completions. How to do this with completing-read - or is there a
>  better way to do this?
>  
>  What i want is to (mis?)use the completion-feature of Emacs to offer the
>  user some choices which he can select either via mouse or via keyboard from
>  the minibuffer.
>  
>  Thanks a lot in advance!
>  Klaus

-- 
Klaus Berndl			mailto: klaus.berndl@sdm.de
sd&m AG				http://www.sdm.de
software design & management	
Carl-Wery-Str. 42, 81739 Muenchen, Germany
Tel +49 89 63812-392, Fax -220

Re: Question to completion

[Ehud Karni]

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
Hash: SHA1

On 08 Nov 2003 13:52:06 +0100, Klaus Berndl <klaus.berndl@sdm.de> wrote:
>
> Suppose i have s command like follows:
>
> (defun offer-some-choices ()
>   (interactive)
>   (completing-read "Select a name: " '(("Klaus" . t) ("Berndl" . t))))
>
> Then this displays in the minibuffer "Select a name: " and then wait for input
> from the user.
>
> How can i achieve that always - *without* the user has to hit TAB - the
> possible completions are displayed immediately?

You have 2 choices:
  1. Run the function corresponding to [tab] 3 times (by preloading the
     keyboard buffer or by adding it to `minibuffer-setup-hook'.
     This will make some extra displays and has built in delay.
  2. Defining a simple function to display all possible completions
     and adding it to `minibuffer-setup-hook'.

Here is the function and an example to the 2nd solution:

(defun minibuffer-all-completion ()
       (with-output-to-temp-buffer "*Completions*"
           (display-completion-list (all-completions "" minibuffer-completion-table))))

;; An example.
(defun offer-some-choices ()
  (interactive)
       (let* ((minibuffer-setup-hook
                    (append minibuffer-setup-hook '(minibuffer-all-completion))))
           (completing-read "Select a name: "
                   '(("Klaus" . t) ("Klaus-2" . t) ("Klaus-3" . t)))
           ))

Ehud.


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Re: Question to completion

[Klaus Berndl]

Thanks a lot, Ehud, your code works very well. But in the meanwhile i have
found a solution for myself. Could you please compare yours with mine and tell
me which is better and why? In general my solution seems to be a little hack -
your seems cleaner...

(defun ecb-offer-choices (prompt choices)
  "Prints PROMPT and returns a string which must be one of CHOICES.
CHOICES is a list of strings whereas the first choice is the default. All
choices are immediately displayed as if completion does it so a selection can
be made either with the mouse or with the keyboard."
  ;; First we create a TAB-event
  (let ((event (if ecb-running-xemacs
                   (make-event 'key-press '(key tab))
                 9)))
    ;; With these 3 TAB-events we ensure that
    ;; 1. The longest possible common substring is display in the minibuffer
    ;; 2. All possible completions are displayed
    (dotimes (i 3)
      (setq unread-command-events (cons event unread-command-events))))
  (let ((answer (completing-read
                 prompt
                 (mapcar (function (lambda (x) (list x t)))
                         choices)
                 nil t)))
    (if (string= answer "")
        (car choices)
      answer)))

The advantage of my solution is that in the minibuffer autom. the longest
possible completion is displayed (in your example this would be the following
minibuffer-content:
"Select a name: Klaus"

Ciao,
Klaus

On Sun, 9 Nov 2003, Ehud Karni wrote:

>  On 08 Nov 2003 13:52:06 +0100, Klaus Berndl <klaus.berndl@sdm.de> wrote:
> >
> > Suppose i have s command like follows:
> >
> > (defun offer-some-choices ()
> >   (interactive)
> >   (completing-read "Select a name: " '(("Klaus" . t) ("Berndl" . t))))
> >
> > Then this displays in the minibuffer "Select a name: " and then wait for
> > input from the user.
> >
> > How can i achieve that always - *without* the user has to hit TAB - the
> > possible completions are displayed immediately?
>  
>  You have 2 choices:
>    1. Run the function corresponding to [tab] 3 times (by preloading the
>       keyboard buffer or by adding it to `minibuffer-setup-hook'.
>       This will make some extra displays and has built in delay.
>    2. Defining a simple function to display all possible completions
>       and adding it to `minibuffer-setup-hook'.
>  
>  Here is the function and an example to the 2nd solution:
>  
>  (defun minibuffer-all-completion ()
>         (with-output-to-temp-buffer "*Completions*"
>             (display-completion-list (all-completions ""
>             minibuffer-completion-table))))
>  
>  ;; An example.
>  (defun offer-some-choices ()
>    (interactive)
>         (let* ((minibuffer-setup-hook
>                      (append minibuffer-setup-hook
>                      '(minibuffer-all-completion))))
>             (completing-read "Select a name: "
>                     '(("Klaus" . t) ("Klaus-2" . t) ("Klaus-3" . t)))
>             ))
>  
>  Ehud.

-- 
Klaus Berndl			mailto: klaus.berndl@sdm.de
sd&m AG				http://www.sdm.de
software design & management	
Carl-Wery-Str. 42, 81739 Muenchen, Germany
Tel +49 89 63812-392, Fax -220

Re: Question to completion

[jan]

Klaus Berndl <klaus.berndl@sdm.de> writes:

> Suppose i have s command like follows:
> 
> (defun offer-some-choices ()
>   (interactive)
>   (completing-read "Select a name: " '(("Klaus" . t) ("Berndl" . t))))
> 
> Then this displays in the minibuffer "Select a name: " and then wait
> for input from the user.
> 
> How can i achieve that always - *without* the user has to hit TAB -
> the possible completions are displayed immediately?  Or with other
> words: How to simulate that the user has already pressed TAB as
> often as necessary to display all possible completions? Best would
> be if the longest common substring of all possible completions is
> displayed immediately in the minibuffer (OK, this i could precompute
> with `try-completion' and then insert as argument INITIAL-INPUT -
> but AFAIK this is deprecated?!).
> 
> But most important is that the user has not to hit any key to see
> all possible completions. How to do this with completing-read - or
> is there a better way to do this?
> 
> What i want is to (mis?)use the completion-feature of Emacs to offer
> the user some choices which he can select either via mouse or via
> keyboard from the minibuffer.

`icomplete-mode' might be a good starting point.

-- 
jan

Re: Question to completion

[Stefan Monnier]

> (defun minibuffer-all-completion ()
>        (with-output-to-temp-buffer "*Completions*"
>            (display-completion-list (all-completions "" minibuffer-completion-table))))

Better just use minibuffer-completion-help.


        Stefan