Re: Current mode command discovery

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> > "C-h x" is a command we introduced for newbies, and then we proceed
>> > confusing them with commands that cannot be shown with "C-h x"?  is
>> > that reasonable and consistent?
>> 
>> Filtering away `undefined' and `ignore' from completions for newbies
>> sounds like a good idea to me: They aren't commands that can be used in
>> `M-x'.
>
> I think filtering out commands such as 'undefined' and 'ignore', that
> are really just internal implementation details, is okay.  But I
> wasn't talking about those, I was talking about digit-argument, which
> are full-fledged commands.

Yes, I'm really unsure about `digit-argument' (and
`negative-argument').  On the one hand, you can't `M-x' them in any
meaningful way?  (Or can you?  I'm not even sure about that.)  On the
other hand, they are commands that people will see popping up in many
contexts, so keeping them in `M-x' completion might make sense from that
point of view?

I'm kinda leaning towards the latter.  Anybody else have an opinion here?

> We can invent some database for augmenting the results of mechanically
> constructing the list of completion candidates by some criteria such
> as key bindings etc.  This database could, for example, tell us to
> remove 'undefined' and 'ignore' from the list.

The database here is constructed here by '(declare (completion ...))'.

> Or we may consider these problems as an indication that perhaps the
> criteria used for this are not smart enough to produce useful lists
> without clutter, and we should rethink.

I don't think we've come up against anything yet that seems to indicate
that marking commands this way is problematic -- we just have to hash
out what our criteria is.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no