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

[Ihor Radchenko <yantar92@posteo.net>]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> The Subject line says "built-in".  But it
> seems the thread has moved on to talk about
> ways that aren't built-in.

I was hoping that there is something built-in, but since there is none,
I'd like to see how Emacs devs envision the possible UIs.

> In that context, I'll mention Icicles wrt
> some things that have been brought up.
> (This has been available since 2006.)
> ____
>
> 1. Wrt "marking" files for some action:
>
> Icicles calls this "saving" instead of
> "marking" a completion candidate.
> ...

This is similar to what I had in mind, yes.
Even better - you can maintain multiple "marked sets".

Visual highlighting of the "marked"/"saved" candidates is also a very
good idea.

As an alternative, there is also `completing-read-multiple' approach
with inserting the selected candidates into the minibuffer. Although, it
is inferior to what you described and to helm's mark system because it
is very hard to toggle selection when things are inserted into the minibuffer.

> 2. You can match file content, in addition
> to, or instead of, file name.

I'd prefer to limit this discussion to multi-file selection. More
sophisticated match criteria may better be discussed in a different
thread to not complicate things.

> 5. You can mark file names in Dired and
> create, or add to, "saved" sets of names
> for subsequent use in file-completion
> commands (retrieve sets as candidates).

This is also an interesting idea, thanks!
I think that `dired-dwim-target-directory' is doing something similar,
but only for default directory.
Something like (imaginary) `dired-dwim-marked-files' could be similarly
useful in the context of multi-file selection.

-- 
Ihor Radchenko // yantar92,
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