Re: ASCII-folded search [was: Re: Upcoming loss of usability ...]

[Artur Malabarba]

>> From those that do toggle it, most of them will prefer an
>> "all-or-nothing" toggle/indicator.
>
> Why? By that logic, you would prefer only one now, for both
> case sensitivity and your new (other) char folding.
>
>> I just don't agree it is important for these multiple options
>> to be visually distinguishable (or independently toggleable)
>> during isearch.
>
> Then you should feel the same about indicating case folding.

I don't. We can afford to distinguish 2 or 3 different types of char-folding, We just can't afford to (and have little reason to) make an arbitrary number of arbitrary equiv classes distinguishable during search.

case folding is significant enough to warrant being one of these 2 or 3 (not to mention it's trivial to do internally). If there's another equivalence class that we think outshines the rest we can distinguish it too.

> I think that, *especially* when there are multiple possible
> char foldings, seeing which ones are currently in effect is
> important/useful.

I disagree, because I think the vast majority of people will always use the same set foldings. For this majority, it's better to only show whether it's ON or OFF, because that's simpler to read and to discern the meaning.

>> And then there are the few of the few of the few
>
> There are a lot of users out there, and more and more of them
> use Unicode chars that you and I might never use.

Indeed. "The few" I'm referring to is not "users who use unicode", it's "users who customize charfolding, and toggle it mid-isearch, and want to toggle specific equiv classes mid-isearch".

>> Which is great! But we shouldn't come up with a complex
>> interface to satisfy this need if it's just gonna
>> confuse a lot of other people.
>
> We should come up with a flexible UI that is as simple as
> possible while supporting the assumption of more than two
> char foldings (with your addition we will already have two).

No, we *can* try come up with a utopic UI, that doesn't mean we should. And it does't mean we should deny willing patches while we throw essays around to come up with that UI. Specially when it's a simple thing that's trivial to revert with git.