Re: Emacs completion matches selection UI

[Dmitry Gutov]

Ted Zlatanov <address@hidden> writes:

> DG> The hard technical part would be to draw the tooltip in the right place
> DG> above the frame, make it fast, and offer a good Elisp interface. Then
> DG> the code, of which there's a lot, can integrate it.

          ^^^ existing code

> `widget-choose' does this already to some degree, right?  Do you see any
> shortcomings in it?

1. It captures all user input.

That prohibits from using it for displaying completion candidates during
unobtrusive, idle completion. Which is a feature users value.

2. It has no support for incremental narrowing (consequence of item 1).

You call the completion command, but there are too many candidates!
What do you do? You type a few chars and see the list shortened on the fly.

`widget-choose' won't let you do that. You'll have to dismiss it, type a
couple of chars, display it again, see whether the list of short enough
now, and if it isn't, dismiss the widget and try again. Most people will
give up now and either type the whole word themselves, or start
scrolling the list with the mouse, hunting for the required candidate.

3. It's displayed near the mouse cursor.

Did I miss a way to change that?

4. It does not support long lists.