Moving from Ido to Icicles

Moving from Ido to Icicles

[Marcin Borkowski]

Hi all,

inspired by an answer here (about project management), and by repeated
hints from Drew about Icicles, I decided to look into Icicles a bit
deeper.  I read "Icicles in a nutshell" at the EmacsWiki and I have to
say that Icicles seem to be "sufficiently advanced" in the sense of
Clarke's law.  I am a bit afraid of leaving Ido (which means changing my
habits a bit), but since I am not /very/ satisfied with Ido, I'm pretty
much sure I'm going to switch soon anyway.

There is one feature of Ido, however, which is very important for me.
Is this possible in Icicles?  (I should probably ask "how do I do it in
Icicles?", though...)  I mean persistent history of visited files.  I
seldom restart my Emacs, but sometimes I do, and I don't want to lose my
history then.  (On the other hand, instead of history per se, I could
probably do with the set of all *.tex, *.org, *.el and maybe a few other
files for now – and just in case I start to e.g. learn Python, I could
just add one more extension to the list.  What might be a better
workflow?)

TIA,

-- 
Marcin Borkowski
http://octd.wmi.amu.edu.pl/en/Marcin_Borkowski
Adam Mickiewicz University

Re: Moving from Ido to Icicles

[Dale Snell]

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On Sat, 01 Nov 2014 11:22:16 +0100
Marcin Borkowski <mbork@wmi.amu.edu.pl> wrote:

> There is one feature of Ido, however, which is very important for me.
> Is this possible in Icicles?  (I should probably ask "how do I do it
> in Icicles?", though...)  I mean persistent history of visited
> files.  I seldom restart my Emacs, but sometimes I do, and I don't
> want to lose my history then.  (On the other hand, instead of history
> per se, I could probably do with the set of all *.tex, *.org, *.el
> and maybe a few other files for now – and just in case I start to
> e.g. learn Python, I could just add one more extension to the list.
> What might be a better workflow?)

I can't speak for Icicles, I've never used it.  Besides, that's Drew's
job.  :-)  However, you might want to look into "recentf", which is a
built-in package.  It keeps a list of the <n> most recently opened
files.  The value of <n> defaults to sixteen, as I recall, but it
can be changed.  When you access the list (from the menu bar or from C-x
C-r) it presents you with that list.  You can then select the file
you want to open.  I've found it quite handy.

Anyway, I hope this helps.

--Dale

--
A: Because it fouls the order in which people normally read text.
Q: Why is top-posting such a bad thing?
A: Top-posting.
Q: What is the most annoying thing on usenet and in e-mail?

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Re: Moving from Ido to Icicles

[Robert Thorpe]

Dale Snell <ddsnell@frontier.com> writes:
> I can't speak for Icicles, I've never used it.  Besides, that's Drew's
> job.  :-)  However, you might want to look into "recentf", which is a
> built-in package.  It keeps a list of the <n> most recently opened
> files.  The value of <n> defaults to sixteen, as I recall, but it
> can be changed.  When you access the list (from the menu bar or from C-x
> C-r) it presents you with that list.  You can then select the file
> you want to open.  I've found it quite handy.

There's more than one way to skin a cat.  I tend to use bookmarks with
short names, e.g. "TR", "L", etc. for the files I access most often.
That's not practical for something like a programming project.  For
cases like that you can bookmark the dired listing of the directory.  In
that case a good way to access what you want is to sort the dired buffer
by date.  I use Ido too, but I use bookmarks much more.

BR,
Robert Thorpe

Re: Moving from Ido to Icicles

[Will O'Brien]

On 1 Nov 2014 21:08, "Robert Thorpe" <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com> wrote:
>
> Dale Snell <ddsnell@frontier.com> writes:
> > I can't speak for Icicles, I've never used it.  Besides, that's Drew's
> > job.  :-)  However, you might want to look into "recentf", which is a
> > built-in package.  It keeps a list of the <n> most recently opened
> > files.  The value of <n> defaults to sixteen, as I recall, but it
> > can be changed.  When you access the list (from the menu bar or from C-x
> > C-r) it presents you with that list.  You can then select the file
> > you want to open.  I've found it quite handy.
>
> There's more than one way to skin a cat.  I tend to use bookmarks with
> short names, e.g. "TR", "L", etc. for the files I access most often.
> That's not practical for something like a programming project.  For
> cases like that you can bookmark the dired listing of the directory.  In
> that case a good way to access what you want is to sort the dired buffer
> by date.  I use Ido too, but I use bookmarks much more.
>
> BR,
> Robert Thorpe
>

I use icicles with recentf, it works very  nicely, as you might expect. I
also use icicles to navigate bookmarks (bookmarks+) which then gives us
best of all worlds.

See http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/Icicles_-_Bookmark_Enhancements

I was a big ido fan, but converted to icicles mainly for superior tag
navigation.

Cheers

Will

RE: Moving from Ido to Icicles

[Drew Adams]

> I use icicles with recentf, it works very  nicely, as you might
> expect. I also use icicles to navigate bookmarks (bookmark+) which
> then gives us best of all worlds.
> See http://www.emacswiki.org/Icicles_-_Bookmark_Enhancements
> 
> I was a big ido fan, but converted to icicles mainly for superior
> tag navigation.

I was on vacation for a few days, but here is a belated reply, to
add a bit to what Will mentioned.  (And yes, bookmarks are a good
way to access frequently used files.)

1. Yes, `icicle-recent-file' is a multi-command that makes use of
library `recentf.el' to give you access to recently used files.

It uses multi-completion, so you can match (1) the (absolute)
file names, (2) the file contents, or both.  With a prefix arg,
the candidates have a third multi-completion part, in the middle:
(3) the date of last modification - so you can match any
combination of name, date, and contents.

(If you use a prefix arg when you act on an individual candidate,
then you visit that file in read-only mode.  This includes
when you act on all matching candidates, i.e., open them all.)


2. Another way to access a persistent history of visited files
is to use library `savehist.el'.  You can customize option
`savehist-additional-variables' so that it includes
`file-name-history'.

Files visited in previous Emacs sessions are then available
using `M-p' during file-name completion.  With Icicles you can
complete against elements of the minibuffer history (e.g.,
`file-name-history').  You can use `M-h' or `M-pause' to do
this (they behave differently).  Completion is handier than
repeating `M-p' or `M-r'.

See http://www.emacswiki.org/Icicles_-_History_Enhancements