Re: Entering filenames with spaces

[David Reitter]

On 12 Aug 2005, at 16:58, Drew Adams wrote:
> The point is that users are free to get rid of the SPC bindings to
> minibuffer-complete-word. I think that David was saying that he  
> never uses
> word completion - in that case, just removing the bindings  
> suffices. Those
> who do use it have several options, including the alternatives of  
> binding it
> to something else (to use SPC for inserting a space) and binding  
> something
> else to a command to insert a space. You could even do it one way for
> file-name completion and the other way 'round for other completion...

I think that would make a lot of sense.

Either way, I want to stress that the default binding of the space  
bar should be too insert a space. Think of a new user, or of a user  
like me who doesn't use a lot of spaces in file names. Don't pressure  
someone into googling for a solution for something as simple as that.  
It's not smart from a UI perspective to assign a highly application- 
specific function to a commonly used key with a fixed meaning, just  
because it's slightly more convenient to a small fraction of users  
instead of hitting Tab.

Remove the binding and allow specialist users who know what they are  
doing to add the binding with a simple define-key.
For non-filename minibuffers where spaces aren't inserted, I don't care.

By the way, mapping ESC to Meta is a very similar thing. Esc is meant  
to let the user "escape" the current situation. But the difference is  
that Esc for Meta is a burned-in, long-standing choice that a lot of  
people (consoles!) are used to, so there's no way one should change it.

-D