bug#57423: Completions Buffer requiring window switching or mouse activity

[uzibalqa]

------- Original Message -------
On Friday, August 26th, 2022 at 6:09 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:


> > Date: Fri, 26 Aug 2022 03:18:58 +0200 (CEST)
> > From: wilnerthomas--- via "Bug reports for GNU Emacs,
> > the Swiss army knife of text editors" bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
> > 
> > Using "M-x COMMAND TAB" to display minibuffer commands, one gets a
> > temporary Completions Buffer that says
> > 
> > Click on a completion to select it
> > 
> > Consequently, one cannot complete or go through the possibilities in the 
> > minibuffer,
> > but am being forced to either switch to it with "C-x o" a couple of times, 
> > or having
> > to use the mouse.
> 
> 
> You don't need to switch or use the mouse. You can instead:
> 
> . keep typing TAB to scroll through the full list of completion
> candidates (if the full list takes more than a single window to
> show), or

Yes, but one cannot select any of them, but just see them getting displayed.

> . type more text in the minibuffer, then press TAB again, to narrow
> the list of candidates -- the next letter which will narrow the
> list is displayed in bold in the list of the candidates, or

Yes, but that requires me writing out the entire command.

> . in Emacs 29, you can type M-<UP> and M-<DOWN> arrow keys to select
> 
> the candidates

So I get to see one by one in the minibuffer itself before hitting RET?
 
> > An effective way that improves the frequent minibuffer activity (e.g. 
> > icomplete lets user
> > select a completion without having to smitch windows), emacs can 
> > automatically switch
> > to the completions buffer so one can get to a possible selection using the 
> > arrow keys.
> 
> 
> In Emacs 29, there's a new variable 'completion-auto-select', which
> does precisely that.

Sounds sufficient.