Re: [PATCH] Support "\n" in icomplete-separator

[Gregory Heytings via "Emacs development discussions." <emacs-devel@gnu.org>]

>>> I'd say this much more bluntly: Emacs's minibuffer input was not 
>>> designed for showing too many completion candidates, let alone show 
>>> them vertically arranged.  It was even less designed to display the 
>>> candidates or other hints in overlays.
>>
>> Well, Emacs wasn't designed to manage emails or browse the web either 
>> ;-)
>
> Yes, it was.  Those applications basically display text with a few 
> images, something that Emacs 21 was definitely designed to support.
>
> Don't misunderstand me: Emacs _can_ display what icomplete-vertical and 
> similar features ask it, it just cannot do that well, and the results 
> are not pretty.
>

I honestly don't understand why you consider that vertical icomplete is 
"not pretty", even more so as you seem to consider at the same time that 
Emacs' handling of emails and web pages is okay.  IMO, Emacs' rendering of 
HTML in emails and on web pages is definitely not pretty.  IMO again, 
displaying completion candidates in the minibuffer is pretty enough, at 
least I don't see why it would be fundamentally less pretty for a newcomer 
than, say, the completion candidates displayed by Chromium or Visual 
Studio.

>
> If you read the code that is involved, the reasons are acutely evident, 
> and it is important for me to make these conclusions public and known to 
> all, because many people believe there's no limit to what one can do 
> with Emacs display features. Well, there is.
>

There are limits, of course, but the feature that is requested is well 
within the limits of what Emacs can do.  And AFAIU implementing a proper 
vertical icomplete/ido with a few more features similar to those of Ivy is 
also within the limits of what Emacs can do.