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RE: A widget-based version of find-cmd
From: |
Drew Adams |
Subject: |
RE: A widget-based version of find-cmd |
Date: |
Mon, 3 Jun 2019 16:28:03 -0700 (PDT) |
> > One of the advantages of a dialog box in such contexts
> > is setting it and reusing it for multiple search actions
> > (interspersed with other, non-search actions).
>
> Currently it's only planned to let the buffers stay alive. I dunno if I
> can save a buffer showing arbitrary widgets? I guess I would have to
> create the widget view from an internal representation, preferably in
> the format of a "find" call or the s-exp format used by find-cmd.
Keeping the buffer is fine. That's essentially what
I meant. A user can access the same buffer later, and
just reuse whatever choices were already filled out.
> What I want to have is an export to these formats so that you can save
> the results in these forms. I guess the reverse should not be too hard.
I didn't really mean save persistently. That would be
a plus - could also be useful. But what I had in mind
was just the fact that the buffer can be kept and reused.
The ability to reuse a whole bunch of settings is an
advantage that is not really available from having
instead completed a whole bunch of inputs.
For completion we have only completion/minibuffer
histories. And even if someone saves such histories
for possible reuse, the entries are not organized
together, as a coherent set of, say, search attributes.
> > In fact, that's about the only advantage I find for such a dialog box.
>
> Another advantage is that it can help you to remember what you have
> forgotten. I for example repeatedly forget that e.g. for
>
> -ctime n File's status was last changed n*24 hours ago. See the
> comments for -atime to under‐ stand how rounding affects
> the interpretation of file status change times.
>
> what I want is
>
> -n for less than n,
>
> e.g. -ctime -1 for "status changed since last day" but I tend to try
> with -ctime 1 and wonder why it fails until I remember that I need "-".
> With the widget based version I can force the user to think about the
> sign by making it mandatory (with a reasonable default).
Yes. Completion can also do that, but much less conveniently.
> > > I think you're looking for the `lazy` widget.
> >
> > Or maybe just split it up, having part of it use `repeat'?
>
> `lazy' is perfect. AFAIU `repeat' won't do since the syntax of "find"
> is actually recursive, so there is no way to avoid recursive widgets.
OK; makes sense.