Re: Menu commands to M-x history?

[Lennart Borgman <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>]

On Mon, Jul 27, 2009 at 5:48 PM, Drew Adams<drew.adams@oracle.com> wrote:
>> >> > Perhaps a better way of learning what command is on a
>> >> > button or menu item is to use help such as `M-x help
>> >> > RET k <Menu item> RET'.
>> >>
>> >> I think that is enough too.
>> >
>> > I agree: `C-h k' or a tooltip is sufficient to show the
>> > command associated with a menu item or button.
>> >
>> > However, it can also be convenient to be able to complete
>> > against commands that were previously executed using a menu.
>> > You might want to do this some of the time (but probably not
>> > by default).
>> >
>> > FWIW, this feature is available in Icicles in the following way:
>>
>> So you think it is enough to not have the menu commands available in
>> Emacs M-x history variable, but that it is good to have it available
>> (in a different way) in your Icicles library?
>
> Just what is unclear about what I wrote?
>
> 1. I think C-h k or a tooltip is generally enough for seeing the command
> associated with a menu item.
>
> 2. Nevertheless, it can also help sometimes to be able to complete against
> command names corresponding to menu items.
>
> 3. Such completion should probably not be part of the normal (default) command
> completion, for reasons already discussed (e.g. by Mathias).


Matthias said:
    Quite often I execute the same M-x
    command over and over again, doing something else in between, and if
    what I did in between included executing some menu commands I might be
    annoyed to have to step back some extra steps in order to get at the
    command I want to run.

Sorry Matthias, forgot to answer, but exactly why is it useful to
distinguish between commands started from the menu and from M-x
because of this? I don't believe that you think something like "ah,
wait, now I will do the next command from the menus to avoid getting
it into M-x history". Or do you actually do that? ;-)


Drew, I think you see what I mean. This reasoning just gets overlay
complicated to actually use IMO.

Just putting the menu commands in the M-x history (+ displaying a
comment about it) is simple, easy to understand and make the coupling
between M-x and the menus visible to new users too. And it also have
the advantage that it is much easier to redo commands that are rather
deep down in the menus.



> 4. It can help to make such completion available on demand during normal command
> completion. That is, while completing a normal command name, hit some key to
> complete also against menu-item commands already entered.
>
> 5. This suggests having a separate, more inclusive command history, which
> includes menu-item commands - to be used only on demand, not by default.
>
> 6. I explained how Icicles handles this, as an example of what is possible.
>
>