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

[York Zhao <gtdplatform@gmail.com>]

I think my biggest problem with `helm-find-file' is it's "auto-expansion", which
is really annoying. Most of the time I don't want Helm to automatically expand
the file or directory for me because Helm's expansion was always wrong. For
example, I press C-x C-f and I want to open the file "notes/foo.org", but as
soon as I typed note, Helm expand to notes/e which is obviously wrong, and I
always have to type backspace to delete the letter `e', and then type foo.org.
The reason for this is that Helm expanded "not", rather than "note" to "notes/",
and in order to get right I have to type "not" and stop, waiting for Helm to
expand to "note/" before keep typing. But the problem is that you don't know
where to stop typing and wait for Helm. What I want is that Helm do not
automatically expand for me. Instead, let me choose a candidate. Maybe this
behavior can be configured, but I never got the time to research on this yet.

On Mon, Sep 1, 2014 at 12:59 PM, Tu, Do <solidius4747@gmail.com> wrote:
> I think helm-find-files is much better than stock ido-find-file or even ido-find-file because:
>
> - It has fuzzy matching by default. You have to install flx to get fuzzy matching in ido.
> - Some people find that Ido horizontal listing is messy, so they create `ido-vertical-mode` for cleaner looking. With Helm, you get this by default with its interface. If you worry the Helm buffer is a bit big, you can always customize its size.
> - It has highlighting on candidates depend on types: directory has a color, plain file has a color, executable has a color, shell script has a color.
> - Depends on what file type your highlighting candidate is, Helm opens it appropriately. For example, if you RET on a directory, Helm opens dired; if you RET on a file, Helm opens that file. You can also customize the application to open the files. Stock find-file at least can open directory; Ido simply can't.
> - You can open multiple files with helm-find-files by marking with C-SPC and press RET. If you want to everything at current directory, you can use M-a to mark all then RET. You can even use wildcard expression like stock find-file
> - Helm has a list of actions to apply on your files: checksum file, open file externally, switch to eshell, grep, diff...
> - Helm is compatible with both Linux and Windows path. Ido can't; you have to drop into stock find-file.
>
> Vào 23:49:00 UTC+7 Thứ hai, ngày 01 tháng chín năm 2014, York Zhao đã viết:
>> 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.