Re: propose adding Icicles to Emacs

[Richard Stallman]

    Icicles does not use advice. Well, there is one tiny exception, which could
    be replaced:

    (defadvice next-history-element

What job does this advice do?

    If Icicles were integrated with Emacs, either `next-history-element' itself
    could be patched to be Icicles-aware or, if that is a no-no, Icicles could
    redefine `next-history-element' for `icicle-mode' use only.

Redefining such a function is almost as bad as advising it.
The goal is to avoid both such methods.

                                                                All this code
    does, BTW, is preselect part of the current candidate in the minibuffer, for
    easy manipulation or deletion. This preselection is optional.

I don't understand "preselect" in this context.  Can you explain?