Re: query-replace-interactive

[Richard Stallman]

    I extended this idea to what you described above, i.e. splitting the
    from-string argument in the form "FROM -> TO".  This would be more
    consistent with standard Emacs handling of default values, but it has
    one drawback: the separator should not appear in the text to replace.

You mean "cannot appear", I think.

Yes, but we could have some escape mechanism to handle that case.

For instance, if you enter just the separator, so that the from and to
strings would be empty, it could call the minibuffer twice (the same
thing it does now) to read the from and to strings.

    Perhaps a more robust method would be to use some sort of "separator"
    string like you suggest, but make it not a simple string, e.g., how
    about:

       (defvar query-replace-separator
          (propertize "\nwith: "
                      'read-only t
                      'field 'prompt
                      'face 'minibuffer-prompt
                      'rear-nonsticky t))

That is an interesting idea.  Would you like to try it?

One case where this could cause some annoyance is that it
may get in the way of certain kinds of editing.  We'd have to see.