RE: Menu commands to M-x history?

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > As someone else said, `M-x' is, well, for `M-x'-executed commands.
> 
> Yes, Richard said that but I do not agree. The M-x history is 
> for the users.

And? Of course histories are for users.

"The history"? There are plenty of different histories, appropriate to different
commands that use them. This is the history for `M-x'. When you call
`completing-read', if you specify a history-variable arg, then the user's input
is added to that particular history. The history used for `M-x' is
`extended-command-history'.

> Don't mix the programmer semantics with the user semantics unless
> there is a good reason to do so. Very often there is, but not in a
> case like this.

What does that mean? How did I mix them? Or what non-mixing do you have in mind?
IOW, what is it that you are really trying to say?

> > That's important for users.
> 
> Why is it important for users?

See what was said previously. Noise reduction. Pertinence of history entries to
the task at hand.

You know, we _could_ always use just `minibuffer-history', and have no such
specificity. But that is less useful to users.

> > It is why commands executed using key bindings are also not
> > included in the history list.
> 
> That is a totally diffirent story since it is a different context as I
> said before. You really do not need any of the commands you execute
> with a key binding in the M-x history.

I think you do. But only on demand. I won't bother arguing for/about that here.
But yes, in Icicles, on-demand access to menu-item commands is no different from
on-demand access to all other commands called using `call-interactively'. I
simply advise `call-interactively', to push each such command to the larger
list, `icicle-interactive-history'.

> > So, I hear you say, filter out insignificant commands - 
> commands such as
> > `self-insert-command' and `forward-char'.
> 
> That is hallucination ;-)

You in fact say to filter out _all_ commands invoked via keys, which is an even
stronger hallucination.

> No one calls these commands from the menus. (You did not intend to say
> that, but I could not resist writing this ...)

I said that I treat all commands called using `call-interactively' the same way.


> >> Drew, I think you see what I mean. This reasoning just gets overlay
> >> complicated to actually use IMO.
> >
> > Why? The only change is to provide some key to let you 
> > access the additional commands.
> 
> Because it is intended to be helpful to newbies, Not to 
> experienced Emacs users.

I intend it to be helpful to both. If a newbie can learn `C-h k', then s?he can
learn a key to complete commands previously invoked from the menu.

And as I mentioned, with La Carte, a newbie can use just the menu if s?he wants,
with completion of menu items. And there, the history passed to
`completing-read' is `icicle-interactive-history', so there is no need to hit a
special key to access such commands. 

It is only for `M-x' (which is not about menu items) that you hit a special key
to enlarge the history list to include commands invoked other than by `M-x'.

> That they should not be to deep is a valid argument mainly when you
> use the commands from the menus often. But it is a bad argument when
> you want to use the menus more for finding commands. (We use that
> reasoning for example in the help menus.)

I don't have an argument with you here, except that _other things being equal_,
a shallow is easier than deep. Believe me, as someone who used the infamous
Interleaf GUI, which had cascading menus 8 zillion levels deep - that's no
panacea for users.

> In the cases that the menus are deep it can be very helpful to put the
> commands in M-x history IMO. And the other ones does not disturb very
> much since you either do not use them often or use a key binding for
> the commands.

We agree that being able to access menu items via history can be helpful. We
disagree whether such access should be by default or on demand.

> Yes. I think they should be in M-x command history. Not putting them
> there is merely a misunderstanding of what semantics to use.

Dunno what that means.