RE: [External] : Re: Simple isearch concerns

[Drew Adams]

> >> You can edit the search string while the minibuffer is active,
> >> and the search results are updated immediately.
> >
> > `C-s' in Emacs does that as well, no?  As soon as
> > you type a char in the "minibuffer" (but just as for
> > a web browser, it's not really a minibuffer)...  You
> > can edit the search string while the "minibuffer" is
> > active, and the search results are updated
> > immediately.  No?
> 
> No, the search in Emacs has no feature quoted above:
> "You can edit the search string while the minibuffer
> is active, and the search results are updated immediately."

I disagree.  Augusto posed an analogy with web browsers,
which have no minibuffer.  He put "minibuffer" in quotes,
as did I.

Isearch certainly lets you delete chars from the end of
the search pattern, and add chars there.  That's
completely general, and it lets you edit the search
pattern while searching.

I put "minibuffer" in quotes, since clearly web browsers
don't have Emacs minibuffers.  For Isearch, the equivalent
to "while the minibuffer is active", is "while searching".
While isearching you certainly can edit the Isearch search
pattern.

The fact that Isearch doesn't use the minibuffer while
searching doesn't change anything in the given description
of the behavior: edit the search pattern while searching.

But if you specify using the minibuffer _not_ as a means
to do something different - in particular, something we
can't do now - but only as a _requirement_, then clearly
it's a vacuous truth that the proposed feature offers
something new.  In that case, the new thing is only that
it uses the minibuffer!  A vacuous QED.
___

I mentioned the Isearch+ feature that you misunderstood
as just the `edit' value of `search-exit-option' for a
reason in this context.

Besides deleting off the end of the search pattern
(which, as I say, is completely general), with option
`isearchp-initiate-edit-commands' you can, e.g., use
`C-b' not to exit search but to move the cursor to the
left in the search pattern.  Then type chars to insert
them there.  And so on.  All you need to do is hit
`C-s' again, to search with the edited pattern.

IOW, yes, minibuffer for editing search patterns.  But
no, not minibuffer all the time.  Only when you want
to do something other than add/remove chars at the end
of the pattern.  And end-modifying actions are the most
common search-pattern editing actions, _by far_.