Re: Dired patch for `i' - bounce between subdir line and its inserted listing

[Mathias Dahl]

>  You already can do this easily with `^'.

Oh? I use that to "back up" all the time but never thought of using it
in that context. Cool!

>  It have advantage of being
>  context-independent: it works everywhere in any part of the subdirectory
>  listing.  OTOH, overloading a clear meaning of `i' ("insert a subdir")
>  with more meanings will add inconsistencies.

I just found a problem with this, maybe that is what you find
inconsistent: sometimes when inserting a dir you end up on another dir
and sometimes a normal file. This means that double tapping `i' would
not always take me back to where I came from because some of the times
it would insert a sub dir instead. We should not mess up the user's
ability to get a muscle memory of an operation like this (i.e. he
cannot rely on double tapping `i' doing the same thing each time, he
needs to know the content of the dir to insert to know what is going
to happen).

I am therefore removing my vote for this change.

>  It seems what you are trying to do here is to insert a group of
>  subdirectories.  Maybe, it would be much easier just to mark them
>  with e.g. `* /' (`dired-mark-directories') and type `i' to insert
>  them all at once into the same dired buffer.

Yes, if `i' could do that I would probably use that, but it does not
work that way now.