Re: Menu commands to M-x history?

[Mathias Dahl]

> Matthias said:
>    Quite often I execute the same M-x
>    command over and over again, doing something else in between, and if
>    what I did in between included executing some menu commands I might be
>    annoyed to have to step back some extra steps in order to get at the
>    command I want to run.
>
> Sorry Matthias, forgot to answer, but exactly why is it useful to
> distinguish between commands started from the menu and from M-x
> because of this? I don't believe that you think something like "ah,
> wait, now I will do the next command from the menus to avoid getting
> it into M-x history". Or do you actually do that? ;-)

As I was trying to say earlier, I think I would be annoyed having "my
precious M-x history polluted by "other stuff". I can see that at
times it would be convenient to get at a previously executed "menu
command". It would be a way to not having to reach for the mouse again
(I'm mostly a keyboard guy). However, thinking about how annoyed I
think I would be when I don't want this and comparing that with having
to ask Emacs (via C-h k) what the command behind a menu option is, I
would prefer not to have a thing like this. At least not enabled by
default.

I agree with you that commands executed via the keyboard are not the
same thing (well, there are some *extremely* complicated ones which I
*might* have wanted to know the name if instead, and then
*theoretically* I *might* "be nice" to have them in some sort of
history - yes, I am being very vague now, I know...) as menu executed
commands so the "We cannot add all commands called interactively to
the M-x history"-argument does not bite on me either.

I took the liberty to check how this works in AutoCAD, a program that
also has a sort of command line and where you can freely mix keyboard
with mouse work in very convenient ways (you can start a command from
a menu, the keyboard or a toolbar, and then "continue" the execution
of command, that is to enter arguments, via the mouse or keyboard).
However, it does not mix the command history like you are suggesting
here. Commands initiated from the command line is what is available in
the command line history. Commands initiated via mouse (menu or
toolbar) is not in the command line history. AutoCAD has been around
for many years and I know that many of its users are very keen on
using the keyboard, and if "mixing the histories" had been a useful
thing to have by default, I am sure it would have been by now. Of
course, this is not a real argument, it's more of an example.

I have one small "issue" that is very similar to this and which
unfortunately :) argues in your direction and that is file name
history. I use bookmarks quite much, to files and directories. From
time to time, when doing C-x C-f I try to find a file that I
previously opened using a bookmark, and each time I am a bit annoyed
that I cannot find the file in the find-file history. So I have to do
C-x r b again to jump to my bookmark. Now, I also use the `anything'
package and there I have both bookmarks and file name history and
recentf history etc etc, so most of the time I use that.

By the way, someone mentioned that we could hint the user how he could
run a command he just executed using the menu, like we do when the
user M-x:es a command that has a keybinding. That suggestion I like
very much.

Okay, enough babbling from me.

/Mathias

PS. And no, I don't do the kind of thinking you suggested above :)