Re: C-r and C-s in minibuffer should search completion

[Stefan Monnier]

>>>> BTW, once this is done, we can revert the recent change to the
>>>> `read-buffer' that adds all the buffers to the list of defaults.
>> 
>>> Why?
>> 
>> Because it's a special case and I'm not convinced it's justified.

> The intention of adding a list of default values was to allow selecting
> more than one default value extracted from the context of the command.

Yes, I said nothing about this.

> However, I agree that putting all buffers pushes this features to the
> extreme because then the list of defaults is the same as the completion
> list.  But there is one significant difference: the list of defaults is
> sorted by recency, so switching between several work buffers (more than
> two) is much easier with `C-x b M-n M-n M-n RET'.

I never said there's no difference.  I just think this special case is
not justified.  Most likely `C-x b M-p M-p M-p RET' would work just
as well.

> OTOH, searching the completion list would be useful in itself
> independent of searching the history list or the list of defaults
> because often these three are disjoint sets, and the list of defaults
> can be presented even when the completion list is empty.

If you like it, feel free to customize your Emacs to provide you this
kind of refinement with different commands to search the history, the
list of defaults, and the list of completions.  But I think the default
search function bound to M-r/M-s would benefit from searching all
of them.


        Stefan