Re: Fast completion with visible cue?

[Jan D.]

> Is the following possible with some ad-on package?  If so, would it
> make sense to enable the ad-on by default?  If not, what do people
> think about adding this feature?

...

> Now, wouldn't it be Really Nice if the minibuffer prompt would
> contain:
>
> Find File: ~/pro[CURSOR]ects/src/foo/doc/drafts/template/help.txt
>
> where CURSOR isn't shown verbatim, but indicate where the cursor is,
> and the latter part of the string is displayed in a light gray color
> but the earlier part of the string is in black.
>
> You could continue typing and TAB complete like the normal prompt, but
> would be able to open the "suggested" filename (shown in light gray)
> by simply pressing RET.  To really open a file called "~/pro" you
> could press SPC DEL or similar.

Care must be taken when implementing this feature.  For example, there
should be some delay before showing the suggested part.  In Safari
(the browser on Mac OSX) I find myself often type in a complete path
and then hit RETURN, just to end up with a longer part that I visited
previously.  In your example I would type

Find File: ~/projects/src/foo/doc/drafts/[RETURN]

only to find that help.txt is opened again.  The suggested part is added
in the same millisecond as I hit return.  This behaviour is very 
annoying.

        Jan D.