Re: Usability suggestion : completion for M-:

[Bastien]

"paul r" <address@hidden> writes:

> But I think I stated that enough now, and you clearly stated your
> position as well, so it could help to have other people advice on 
> that concerning the *current implementation* of M-:

Since you're calling for other people advice, here is mine.

Like Drew, I am a bit skeptical about this change and I agree it will
introduce some inconsistency.  

My main concerns are these ones: 

1) if people get used to press TAB instead of M-TAB after M-: then they
   will be surprised that pressing TAB does not complete expressions in
   Lisp modes;

2) Having TAB complete expressions after M-: will make people confuse
   commands and expressions, since TAB will then have the same effect
   after M-: and M-w; 

3) I wouldn't drop the possibility to self-insert tabs with the TAB key
   after M-: -- at least not so easily.  

The fact that ielm uses TAB in order to complete expression is not an
argument to use it in the minibuffer.  In ielm, the TAB key is bound to
`comint-dynamic-complete' and M-TAB is bound to `lisp-complete-symbol'.
"comint" is short for "command-interpreter-in-a-buffer".  So in ielm.el
the TAB key has the same meaning than it has in shell.el -- and it is
consistent to have both TAB and M-TAB here.

I have the impression that the only *true* motivation for performing
completion with TAB after M-: is that M-TAB is stolen by many window
managers.  If so, did people know that M-C-i could be used for
completion?  If they didn't know about this key, I think it's better to
test it a bit before proposing another one.

My 2 cents,

-- 
Bastien