Re: A package in a league of its own: Helm

[phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk (Phillip Lord)]

"Tu, Do" <solidius4747@gmail.com> writes:
>> I could rebind helm to make it use tab and delete like ido, although I
>> 
>> think it would still not be as nice as ido. Say I do find-file in a
>> 
>> directory, then select src, then uk, then ac, then ncl (as in a java
>> 
>> project), in ido I go C-xC-f s [rtn][rtn][rtn][rtn] because ido offers
>> 
>> "uk" and the others as the first completion. Helm offers "." and ".." as
>> 
>> the first two, so I have to do C-xCf s
>> 
>> [right][down][down][right][down][down][right]. Or I have to hit the
>> 
>> first key of "uk", then "ac" -- all of which requires thinking about.
>>
>
> For an edge case like that where everything is at the top, then even stock
> find-file is fast. 


This is not an edge case for me. I have a lot of empty directories. In
the ideal world ido or helm would just squash them.


> But then, your current directory contains many files then you may one
> to look around to see the files in that directory. In that case, Ido
> cannot do it because you cannot have an actually buffer to scroll
> up/down to see. In this case, with Ido, you have to drop into Dired,
> look around and start ido-find-file again.


Yes, this is true, if the number of files is large. For small numbers
you can see the options, for large numbers this is truncated.

>> C-j: Hit1 Expand Candidate, Hit2 or (C-u) Find file
>> 
>> find-file (`C-l': Go up one level)
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> What does "Hit1" and "Hit2" mean?
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Phil
>
> helm-projectile is really nice but if you want to look at the current
> directory or navigate around, you should use helm-find-files. C-j means that
> you proceed to the next level, that is either a file or a directory. Hit 1
> means pressing one time. Hit 2 means pressing 2 times; pres you hit C-j twices
> and if your highlighting is on a file, then the file content is opened up in
> another buffer. You can also press C-u in helm-find-files; its has the same
> effect as pressing C-j twice. You can navigate the other buffer with
> M-<next>/M-<prior>.


Okay, that's a good explanation!



> Actually, navigating back and forth with C-j/C-l is much faster than <tab> and
> <delete>/<return> since both of those keys are on the home row.

Well, we both having the confounding factor that I am used to
del/tab/ret and you are used to C-j/C-l. None the less, I would argue
that single key presses are faster than doubles, especially for
tab/del/retn which everyone uses a lot and are nice and big.

Phil