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

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

Left and right arrow! That's useful to know. Still not as convienient as
tab and return (espectially on laptops), but better than double presses.

Phil

York Zhao <gtdplatform@gmail.com> writes:
> I've been using Helm for many years, and it has been a fundamental part of my
> Emacs system. However, I also don't like `helm-find-file', and I agree ido is
> much better in this. By the way, in `helm-find-file', you may want to try using
> the left arrow to go to the parent directory, not as good as in ido but still
> usable. Having said that, I think other than "find file", helm is great in
> anything else.
>
> On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 12:01 PM, Phillip Lord
> <phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk> wrote:
>>
>> First, thanks for the tutorial. I've tried helm (and anything) several
>> times, but never got on with it as I have found the experience too
>> confusing. I've always reverted to ido. I like the idea of helm because
>> it is more pervasive than ido and can do several things at once. I
>> dislike the practice of helm because too many things happen at once (and
>> the wiki is incomprehensible).
>>
>> The thing that I am stuck on at the moment, is file navigation. With
>> ido.el, I use [tab] or [del] to move up or down directories (and carry
>> on selecting). With helm I have to use C-l C-j which I find much slower
>> because of the double keypress and because C-k is in the middle.
>>
>> I don't get the behaviour you are talking about with helm. I get a
>> single directory at once, and I have to navigate through it to get to
>> the files I want.
>>
>> Clearly I doing something wrong!
>>
>> Phil
>>
>>
>>
>> <solidius4747@gmail.com> writes:
>>> Consider this path: arch/x86/boot/main.c
>>>
>>> Can you type the file name first: "main.c", then add "x86" to get the correct
>>> file above? I'm pretty sure ido+flx can't do that, but maybe I'm missing
>>> something.
>>>
>>> With Helm, you can simply specify "mai x86" and it narrows to 3 candidates
>>> with the above path at the top. The file is in Linux kernel source.
>>>
>>> Maybe you misunderstood my statement about precise remembering project
>>> structure. What I meant was you have to remember the correct path ordering,
>>> and that requires you to be familiar with the directory structure. Whlie in
>>> Helm, I'm completely new to a directory and simply know nothing about
>>> directory structure. With Helm, I can start pop up questions like "is there a
>>> main.c that is relate to x86 arch?" and so on.
>>>
>>>
>>
>> --
>> Phillip Lord,                           Phone: +44 (0) 191 222 7827
>> Lecturer in Bioinformatics,             Email: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk
>> School of Computing Science,            http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/phillip.lord
>> Room 914 Claremont Tower,               skype: russet_apples
>> Newcastle University,                   twitter: phillord
>> NE1 7RU
>>
>
>

-- 
Phillip Lord,                           Phone: +44 (0) 191 222 7827
Lecturer in Bioinformatics,             Email: phillip.lord@newcastle.ac.uk
School of Computing Science,            http://homepages.cs.ncl.ac.uk/phillip.lord
Room 914 Claremont Tower,               skype: russet_apples
Newcastle University,                   twitter: phillord
NE1 7RU