Re: ehelp woes, or why I hate a module that I love so much

[Stefan Monnier]

> First I'd like to get some input from people around here regarding why
> it is necessary for ehelp to use its own command-loop. I sure would like
> to get rid of it.

I don't think there's a very strong reason why the code uses its
own command-loop.  In other settings an explicit while loop calling
`read-event' is used (in query-replace, for example), or some
special keymap is installed on the overriding-terminal-local-map
(in isearch).
I'm sure that overriding-minor-mode-map-alist could be used as well.

I don't like `read-event' because it fails to obey function-key-map
and key-translation-map and because it doesn't run post/pre-command-hook
and other such things.

Note that all those different approaches behave subtly differently,
so the trade-offs are not always obvious.  It might be worth trying
out something like overriding-terminal-local-map and see how it works.
But you might end up finding out that the same problems show up
(after all, a recursive command loop is really not very different
from a (while ... (read-key-sequence) ...) or from temporarily
setting the overriding-terminal-local-map).


        Stefan