Re: Q: Is there a built-in way to read multiple file names?

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> In my use case, the user may not immediately know if she needs to attach
>> a single file or multiple files. So, having two separate interfaces for
>> single file vs. multiple files is awkward.
>
> There's no need to use two interfaces.  use just one: the one that can
> handle several files.  Selecting a single file from a list is known to
> work and be natural for many years, including in Emacs.  We even have
> a convention that if no files are marked, the current file is the
> selected one.

I am not convinced that Dired UI is better, but I can see how dired UI
can be a good choice for some people. Let's discuss what should be
changed in dired to adapt it to multi-file selection.

I am trying to simulate some use-cases when users need to select
multiple files using dired:

1. Single file is trivial
2. Multiple files in the same folder are also trivial - use mark
   commands
3. What does not seem to be trivial is selecting multiple files residing
   in different folders. What do you think should be done to dired to
   get this?

   I am thinking about something similar to my previous ideas - having a
   separate section in dired buffer that lists marked files.

   --------------  dired-select -------------------
  [ Selected files ]
* -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92  1.2M Jul  6 15:31 xdisp.c (from Git/emacs/src/)
* -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92 2.5K May  3 15:24 local.mk (from Git/org-mode)
* -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92 3.8K Jul 13 18:16 Makefile (from Git/org-mode)
  [ Dir ]
  /home/yantar92/Git/org-mode:
  drwxr-xr-x 3 yantar92 4.0K Jul 15 09:48 doc
  drwxr-xr-x 5 yantar92 4.0K Jul 15 09:06 etc
  drwxr-xr-x 2 yantar92  20K Jul 15 16:30 lisp
  drwxr-xr-x 2 yantar92 4.0K Jul 13 18:16 mk
  drwxr-xr-x 2 yantar92 4.0K Jun 12  2022 paches
  drwxr-xr-x 5 yantar92 4.0K Jul 15 10:45 testing
  -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92  936 Jun 25 10:22 CONTRIBUTE.org
  -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92 1.9K Jun 25 10:22 README.org
  -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92  35K Jun 25 10:22 COPYING
* -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92 2.5K May  3 15:24 local.mk
* -rw-r--r-- 1 yantar92 3.8K Jul 13 18:16 Makefile

  My only concern is what to do when the folder contains many files and
  the first section listing the marked files may not be visible when
  scrolling the buffer.

>> 2. It is not uncommon for me to attach files that have common
>>    names. Having completion under the fingertips is better compared to
>>    manually entering dired filters. (in dired, there is an extra key
>>    sequence required)
>
> Files that have common names are usually listed together, so I don't
> think this problem is as serious as you describe it.  A useful feature
> for selecting files is, when the user types a characters, to move
> point the first file whose name begins with that character.  If we
> implement that, you get the best of all worlds.

Why only to file that _begins_ with a character? Why not also moving to
a file that have specific work in its name? regexp? I feel that we are
coming back to the idea of completing read...

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
Org mode contributor,
Learn more about Org mode at <https://orgmode.org/>.
Support Org development at <https://liberapay.com/org-mode>,
or support my work at <https://liberapay.com/yantar92>