Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Jean Louis]

Today I have started using the GNU ELPA package
`aggressive-completion'. 

It speeds up my workflow. It cuts down the time of work to 30% of what
was before.

Jean

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Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Christopher Dimech]

Felicitations Jean,

The way you say it sounds very good.  I wonder how it works with orderless
and other completion styles such as partial-completion and initials.  Or does
aggressive-completion have such capability?


> Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 7:30 AM
> From: "Jean Louis" <bugs@gnu.support>
> To: "Help GNU Emacs" <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> Subject: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA
>
>
> Today I have started using the GNU ELPA package
> `aggressive-completion'.
>
> It speeds up my workflow. It cuts down the time of work to 30% of what
> was before.
>
> Jean
>
> Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
> https://www.fsf.org/campaigns
>
> In support of Richard M. Stallman
> https://stallmansupport.org/
>
>

Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Jean Louis]

* Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> [2021-06-21 22:49]:
> Felicitations Jean,
> 
> The way you say it sounds very good.  I wonder how it works with orderless
> and other completion styles such as partial-completion and initials.  Or does
> aggressive-completion have such capability?

Try it out.

Myself, I was heavy user of helm, now almost never. Ivy almost
never. This is because the default completion works often faster.

The package aggressive-completion makes it even faster, illusion is
that it thinks for me. It removes a need for TABs. 

-- 
Jean

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https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

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Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Christopher Dimech]

The orderless style is working as expected.  Have played with it a bit and I like it.
Have not used helm but was using ivy.  I much preferred have something else that
is not so big.

Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Tassilo Horn]

Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:

Hi Christopher,

> The way you say it sounds very good.  I wonder how it works with
> orderless and other completion styles such as partial-completion and
> initials.  Or does aggressive-completion have such capability?

It is agnostic of the used completion-styles but works best for those
where minibuffer-complete (or rather
aggressive-completion-auto-complete-fn) can complete the current
candidate further.  That's the case for styles whose candidates usually
have a common prefix which can then be completed.

With orderless, because of the orderlessiness, that's less common, e.g.,
with input fo most styles would have as candidates foo-bar, foo-quux,
foo-baz and aggressive-completion could complete to foo-.  With
orderless, baz-foo would also be a canditate so there is no common
prefix which could be completed.  (Maybe it could complete at least
"foo" and then it's the users choice if she wants to complete at the
front or at the end by moving point...).

Similar arguments hold for the flex completion style.

So all in all, I'd say aggressive-completion works very good for the
styles basic, partial-completion, and substring and less good for more
"open and flexible" styles.

Bye,
Tassilo

Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 9:28 PM
> From: "Tassilo Horn" <tsdh@gnu.org>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: "Jean Louis" <bugs@gnu.support>, help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA
>
> Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:
>
> Hi Christopher,
>
> > The way you say it sounds very good.  I wonder how it works with
> > orderless and other completion styles such as partial-completion and
> > initials.  Or does aggressive-completion have such capability?
>
> It is agnostic of the used completion-styles but works best for those
> where minibuffer-complete (or rather
> aggressive-completion-auto-complete-fn) can complete the current
> candidate further.  That's the case for styles whose candidates usually
> have a common prefix which can then be completed.
>
> With orderless, because of the orderlessiness, that's less common, e.g.,
> with input fo most styles would have as candidates foo-bar, foo-quux,
> foo-baz and aggressive-completion could complete to foo-.  With
> orderless, baz-foo would also be a canditate so there is no common
> prefix which could be completed.  (Maybe it could complete at least
> "foo" and then it's the users choice if she wants to complete at the
> front or at the end by moving point...).
>
> Similar arguments hold for the flex completion style.
>
> So all in all, I'd say aggressive-completion works very good for the
> styles basic, partial-completion, and substring and less good for more
> "open and flexible" styles.

Have not seen a problem but you seem to have tested it more thoroughly.
Will do some more tests.

> Bye,
> Tassilo
>

Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Tassilo Horn]

Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:

>> So all in all, I'd say aggressive-completion works very good for the
>> styles basic, partial-completion, and substring and less good for
>> more "open and flexible" styles.
>
> Have not seen a problem but you seem to have tested it more
> thoroughly.

Kind of, I wrote it. ;-)

Bye,
Tassilo

Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Christopher Dimech]

> Sent: Tuesday, June 22, 2021 at 10:21 PM
> From: "Tassilo Horn" <tsdh@gnu.org>
> To: "Christopher Dimech" <dimech@gmx.com>
> Cc: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> Subject: Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA
>
> Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:
>
> >> So all in all, I'd say aggressive-completion works very good for the
> >> styles basic, partial-completion, and substring and less good for
> >> more "open and flexible" styles.
> >
> > Have not seen a problem but you seem to have tested it more
> > thoroughly.
>
> Kind of, I wrote it. ;-)

Hat off then.  It's good work.  Had a look on who wrote it but I get
a lot of mail.

> Bye,
> Tassilo
>

Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Jean Louis]

* Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> [2021-06-22 12:39]:
> Christopher Dimech <dimech@gmx.com> writes:
> 
> Hi Christopher,
> 
> > The way you say it sounds very good.  I wonder how it works with
> > orderless and other completion styles such as partial-completion and
> > initials.  Or does aggressive-completion have such capability?
> 
> It is agnostic of the used completion-styles but works best for those
> where minibuffer-complete (or rather
> aggressive-completion-auto-complete-fn) can complete the current
> candidate further.  That's the case for styles whose candidates usually
> have a common prefix which can then be completed.

I use the wild card * to find entries with matches in the middle of
string. 

Like input of `*mail' would find result like: libreplanet mailing list 











xJean

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https://www.fsf.org/campaigns

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Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Yuchen Pei]

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Jean Louis <bugs@gnu.support> writes:

> Today I have started using the GNU ELPA package
> `aggressive-completion'. 
>
> It speeds up my workflow. It cuts down the time of work to 30% 
> of what
> was before.

Thanks for the recommendation. I gave it a try, got frustrated by 
the lack of cycling in the minibuffer, and then discovered (emacs 
builtin?) icomplete-mode, which I'm now using instead of the 
aggressive-completion-mode :)

Best,
Yuchen

>
> Jean
>
> Take action in Free Software Foundation campaigns:
> https://www.fsf.org/campaigns
>
> In support of Richard M. Stallman
> https://stallmansupport.org/


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Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Tassilo Horn]

Yuchen Pei <hi@ypei.me> writes:

Hi Yuchen,

>> Today I have started using the GNU ELPA package
>> `aggressive-completion'. It speeds up my workflow. It cuts down the
>> time of work to 30% of what was before.
>
> Thanks for the recommendation. I gave it a try, got frustrated by the
> lack of cycling in the minibuffer, and then discovered (emacs
> builtin?) icomplete-mode, which I'm now using instead of the
> aggressive-completion-mode :)

aggressive-completion-mode basically hits TAB for you and then it is
obvious that it must disable cycling.  Otherwise, it would cycle after
every command if the remaining completions are below
completion-cycle-threshold.

But it disabled cycling only during its own stuff, so you can still TAB
yourself and get cycling depending on your setting of
completion-cycle-threshold.

Bye,
Tassilo

RE: [External] : Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Drew Adams]

> > Thanks for the recommendation. I gave it a try, got frustrated by the
> > lack of cycling in the minibuffer...
> 
> aggressive-completion-mode basically hits TAB for you and then it is
> obvious that it must disable cycling.  Otherwise, it would cycle after
> every command if the remaining completions are below
> completion-cycle-threshold.
> 
> But it disabled cycling only during its own stuff, so you can still TAB
> yourself and get cycling depending on your setting of
> completion-cycle-threshold.

Dunno about agressive-*, and certainly yet another
completion mechanism is welcome.

But showing completions initially, which I guess is at
least part of what you mean by "hits TAB for you", is
(or can be) independent of using TAB to cycle.

Icicles, for instance, has no trouble showing completions
at the outset and letting you use TAB to cycle.  It also
has no trouble letting you use TAB to show completions
(if you don't want them shown automatically) and yet also
use TAB to cycle.

And I'm sure Icicles is not the only such example by now.

Re: Useful completion package in GNU ELPA

[Jean Louis]

* Tassilo Horn <tsdh@gnu.org> [2021-06-22 12:28]:
> aggressive-completion-mode basically hits TAB for you and then it is
> obvious that it must disable cycling.  Otherwise, it would cycle
> after every command if the remaining completions are below
> completion-cycle-threshold.

It has good use to me, seems like I cannot without it. Thanks for
writing it.