Re: Emacs completion matches selection UI

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Sat, 04 Jan 2014 09:21:33 +0000 address@hidden (João Távora) wrote: 

JT> Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:
>> Based on the discussion so far, it seems that:
>> 
>> [...]
>> - it should be possible to implement a generic frontend for completion
>> that both can use, and other tools like yasnippet can use IIUC.  The

JT> Thanks for the summary of the discussion so far, but this last statement
JT> might bring some confusion... Yasnippet can curiously fit into many
JT> parts of the problem:

JT> * It can be a source to completion frameworks, auto-complete and company
JT>   have such sources.

Right.  A "completion backend" I think is the current term.

JT> * It prompts the user when it finds more than one snippet for an abbrev,
JT>   and uses its own `yas-prompt-functions' abstraction. Some of the
JT>   functions offer completion.

This is a "completion frontend" IIUC.  yasnippet.el can have its own
prompt functions if they work with the larger completion API (as
followup queries), otherwise it's probably best to avoid integrating
Yasnippet as I described.

JT> * It installs a keybinding for TAB which is problematic because it is
JT>   very sought-after binding for completion-related stuff. The parts of
JT>   this discussion that concerned yasnippet dealed with this, AFAIK.

Yes, this is a fun debate.  I'd like to leave it up to the user and make
the default conservative, but it should be context-dependent and easy to
augment by a package like Yasnippet, IMHO.

>> with their experience of writing it once already, and we have to make
>> sure we don't end up with a solution no one wants to use :)

JT> Yep. For me personally it would make sense to evaluate alternatives
JT> based a matrix like the one proposed by Stefan earlier:

JT> http://article.gmane.org/gmane.emacs.devel/166661/match=completion+ui

OK, but I don't think a matrix can cover all the subtleties.  I think
fitting Emacs' current completion cases, company-mode, and
completion-ui+Predictive into a single framework would be a good start
and then you can see if Yasnippet can fit there.  Maybe it can't without
a complete refit, and in that case we leave it alone.  (I think Helm
will also be in this category, its UI is too integrated and is not
really a completion framework in the traditional sense.)

Ted