Re: [External] : Re: Indicate better the current use of the echo area / minibuffer [was: Controlling Isearch from minibuffer]

[Daniel Mendler <daniel@mendler.net>]

On 5/13/21 4:11 PM, Drew Adams wrote:
>>> As I've said, I, for one, think it's good that Isearch
>>> doesn't use the minibuffer.  But I think it might help
>>> if there were a visual indication of some kind, to
>>> distinguish Isearching from use of the minibuffer, and
>>> Isearching from (other) use of the echo area.
>>
>> There is such an indication: the cursor is not in the mini-window.
> 
> Yes, there is indeed an "indication of some kind".
> 
> ABut as the Subject says, this is about _better_
> indicating such things - being _more_ helpful.

Personally, I would not like to use such a colorful "subtle" indication
in the echo area. To me this seems more like an implementation detail,
which should not be visible to the user.

The echo area/minibuffer distinction comes up from time to time in
discussions with new users. I know that I had been confused for a while
with the Isearch behavior. The Isearch use of the echo area is
unexpected. Users expect to enter a search string into a separate input
form as is common in many other programs. In Emacs this input form is
the minibuffer.

I would welcome the changes by Augusto. The minibuffer-controlled
Isearch makes entering the search string more robust with regards to
various editing commands as mentioned before by Kévin Le Gouguec.

There exists the ctrlf package on MELPA which also uses the minibuffer,
but it feels hardly justified to install an extra package only to get a
minibuffer-controlled search mode. I also don't want to replace such a
tightly integrated component like Isearch with an external package. If a
minibuffer mode can be added to Isearch with small effort and in a
reasonably clean way, why not do that?

Daniel