Re: Feature suggestion: iswitchb should have an option to show virtual buffers like ido does

[Richard Riley]

Tom <address@hidden> writes:

> I see ido now has a virtual buffers option which shows unopened
> matching buffers from the recent files list:
>
>       (defcustom ido-use-virtual-buffers nil
>   "If non-nil, refer to past buffers as well as existing ones.
> Essentially it works as follows: Say you are visiting a file and
> the buffer gets cleaned up by midnight.el.  Later, you want to
> switch to that buffer, but find it's no longer open.  With
> virtual buffers enabled, the buffer name stays in the buffer
> list (using the `ido-virtual' face, and always at the end), and if
> you select it, it opens the file back up again.  This allows you
> to think less about whether recently opened files are still open
> or not.  Most of the time you can quit Emacs, restart, and then
> switch to a file buffer that was previously open as if it still
> were."
>
> I suggest adding an option to iswitchb to get this behavior.
>
> iswitchb does have an option for virtual buffers, but it shows
> them only if there is no match in the list of open buffers
> (so if you type "list" then it doesn't show the unopened
> file "list-test.c" if, say, there is a "list.c" buffer open):
>
> (defcustom iswitchb-use-virtual-buffers nil
>   "If non-nil, refer to past buffers when none match.
> ..."
>
> ido's version is much more useful, because it completely blurs
> the difference between buffer switching and file opening and there is
> no need to explicitly open files if you want to switch to a
> recently used file.
>
> iswitchb should also support that.

Or use ido mode which is fast gaining popularity and is a superset of
what iswitchb provides. Why duplicate effort? Ido mode now ships with
emacs and more and more modes integrate with it in the from of using ido
to complete all input prompts.