bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

[João Távora]

On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 12:29 PM Dmitry Gutov <dmitry@gutov.dev> wrote:
>
> On 08/12/2023 13:27, João Távora wrote:
> >> Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:
> >>
> >>> Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
> >>> buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?
> >> I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.
> > Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
> > argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
> > so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
> > and maybe more.  But I don't understand exactly what the
> > feature does (though here it seems simpler than in the previous
> > one).
>
> It's the same feature.
>
> I think ido-use-virtual-buffers's docstring has a good explanation.
>
> So, two parts:
>
> - Using entries from recentf in the list of buffers to switch to.
> - Color them differently somehow.

So including files in a buffer list?  Seems odd, but then ido
had a lot of oddities.

Anyway, I think what I miss most about Ido also solves the
problem of going to recently visited files.  In Ido, I could
ido-find-file, type a fragment of a file name and then M-p to
cycle between those old files that match that pattern

In vanilla completion, icomplete, etc (and this includes fido-mode),
M-p doesn't do this search.  The workflow for this appears to be M-r
for previous-matching-history-element but that asks me to input
a regexp, which is not necessarily the completion style I have
configured.  Even when I do that, it doesn't seem to work very well,
doesn't seem to go into the recentf list, or at least is confusing
enough that I don't bother trying it.  But I still miss that feature
after many years away from Ido.

So, if I were to work on something for Fido, it would be that
feature (which, importantly, doesn't mix buffers with files in
the same bag).

João