Re: C-f in isearch minibuffer

[Juri Linkov]

>     This reminds me of another misfeature.  C-f typed at the end of the
>     isearch's minibuffer that pulls characters from the parent buffer is
>     not user-friendly.  With recently proposed special commands like `M-.'
>     in the minibuffer to pull things from the parent buffer to be implemented
>     in the next release, I think it is better to get rid of this misfeature
>     before this release:
>
> I don't think it a is bad feature, and the proposal is just a proposal.

In http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/emacs-devel/2004-07/msg00164.html
you opposed to such feature as:

,----
|     > For what it's worth, I can also do
|     >
|     >    M-% C-w C-w C-w RET
|     >
|     > since I've added a C-w binding in minibuffer-local-map that mimics
|     > isearch's C-w.
| 
|     Why not add something like this to Emacs?  Or maybe more general
|     character-based command like typing C-f in the end of the minibuffer
|     to pull text from the source buffer character by character to the 
minibuffer.
| 
| No, no, no!  Let's not have more special casing.  People should be
| able to rely on standard Emacs commands to do the standard thing.
| 
| You can switch windows from the minibuffer to copy text into it.
`----

I now agree that it's better not to change the standard Emacs behavior,
but to add a new special keybinding (like `M-.') to pull characters/words
from the original buffer.  This feature could be implemented in the next
release, but C-f removed before the release to not expose non-standard C-f
at the end of the minibuffer to a large user base when there is a better
possible feature.

-- 
Juri Linkov
http://www.jurta.org/emacs/