Re: space, M-x

[Jim Blandy]

On Mon, Nov 10, 2008 at 9:07 AM, Gilaras Drakeson <address@hidden> wrote:
>> This may be marginally more convenient than "C-8 0 M-x set-fill-column
>> RET" in some cases, indeed (basically in the cases where you've
>> started M-x before realizing you needed to pass a prefix arg).
>
> I am looking for two improvements:
>
> One is the ability to enter the arguments "naturally", the way you use a
> shell.  It is more comfortable to see the whole command (with arguments)
> on the same line/in the same area.  Sometimes the user wants to go back
> and edit previous arguments, or even the command name.

In the current sources, you can type M-x set-fill-column RET and then
use M-p to find previous values.

> The other is to have the command and its arguments in the history.
> Imagine that you want to (do-thing arg1-1 arg2), then (do-thing arg1-2
> arg2), (do-thing arg1-3 arg2), etc.  Currently doing this can be a
> hassle, unless you use eval-expression in which case you lose the other
> benefits of M-x, e.g., hand-crafted tab completion. It would be handier
> if you could type "replace-regex<Up>" and see the arguments to your
> previous invocations of replace-regex.

You can type M-% replace-regexp RET M-p to see previous regular
expressions, can't you?

>>>  M-x make-directory M-space ~/<TAB>
>>
>> But I don't see what's the point of this one.
>>
>>    M-x make-directory RET ~/<TAB>
>>
>> works just as well, doesn't it?
>
> Yes, the logical order of entering non-prefix commands are fine.  The
> other argument about the history of previous commands still holds,
> though.

M-p works here, too.

Perhaps what you're after here is having Emacs's M-x history behave a
bit more like bash's command history, where stepping back into the
history retrieves both a command and its arguments.