From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: xyblor Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: isearch-whole-buffer? Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 17:48:13 -0500 Message-ID: <44ydndg4Yss-VbjZnZ2dnUVZ_tqdnZ2d@mcgill.ca> References: <-N-dnckRSdxBlrnZnZ2dnUVZ_vudnZ2d@mcgill.ca> NNTP-Posting-Host: main.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; format=flowed Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: sea.gmane.org 1143330032 11183 80.91.229.2 (25 Mar 2006 23:40:32 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@sea.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 23:40:32 +0000 (UTC) Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Mar 26 00:40:31 2006 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by ciao.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1FNIMu-0006Mt-4K for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 26 Mar 2006 00:40:28 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1FNIMt-0005Wl-Mk for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 25 Mar 2006 18:40:27 -0500 Original-Path: shelby.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!news4.google.com!border1.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.giganews.com!local01.nntp.dca.giganews.com!nntp.mcgill.ca!news.mcgill.ca.POSTED!not-for-mail Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2006 16:48:03 -0600 User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.7.5) Gecko/20041206 Thunderbird/1.0 Mnenhy/0.7.2.0 X-Accept-Language: en-us, en Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help In-Reply-To: Original-Lines: 26 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 132.216.227.198 Original-X-Trace: sv3-IqIGJzUHN6vcBBep0C3bnIrz37AakhaN+26aiqyj4aij7pEpNNBDgDvN6KKKt9sL6kyrBdSpKk5xSUT!Uk0cnKOyjf66YbWp0xzMwfmDBdJL7AkZK7mpuDDd70AnUYzi4O06Aq4MZlQ8SU61hH7xz7aXlvs+!1ioknXQBPg== Original-X-Complaints-To: abuse@mcgill.ca X-DMCA-Complaints-To: abuse@mcgill.ca X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Please be sure to forward a copy of ALL headers X-Abuse-and-DMCA-Info: Otherwise we will be unable to process your complaint properly X-Postfilter: 1.3.32 Original-Xref: shelby.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:138380 Original-To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:33985 Archived-At: B. T. Raven wrote: > I'm having trouble imagining why C-s xxxxxxxxxx... and then C-s again to > force wrapping to the beginning of the buffer doesn't work for you. Even > if the search string (xxxxxx...) is very long, you don't have to backspace > to the beginning to return to the mark. You can just C-x C-x. No? Being forced to wrap the search is inconvenient when you don't know how to spell what you are looking for, and you have to press C-s every time you want to try a different spelling. It's also inconvenient to start a search when the point is at the end of the buffer, because no matter what you're looking for, you'll have to press C-s again, and you don't know you've typed enough characters. There's also a more general design issue at play here: it seems to me that most of the time, when a person initiates a search, s/he wants to answer the question "where in this buffer will I find this string?" not "where will I find this string in the portion of the buffer that is below/above the point?". I find Firefox's "find" (control-f) to be more sensible in this regard, and I am surprised that in the long history of Emacs' development, nobody seems to have shared this view; to such an extent that not only is there no built in function or variable to enable searching the whole buffer by default, there isn't even a convenient workaround. I realize it's a minor point, but given Emacs' extensible nature, I'm supposed to bend it to my will, right? Or am I just out to lunch on this?