Re: Losing minibuffer input

[Óscar Fuentes]

Juri Linkov <address@hidden> writes:

> There is a long-standing usability problem when editing multi-line text in
> the minibuffer: it's too easy to lose edited text by pressing an up-down
> arrow key with the intention to go to the next/previous line like in a
> normal buffer.  The changes are lost because the up-down key has a special
> meaning in the minibuffer to go to the next/previous history item.
>
> The fix is simple: allow up-down arrow keys to have their usual behavior
> and only on hitting the beginning/end of the minibuffer move to the next
> or previous history item, thus making navigation more smooth and continuous.

I see some incoveniences with this approach: when you are on the first
displayed line and you think that there are more lines preceding it,
pressing up has the same problem you want to solve if there was no
preceding line. Ditto if you are on the last displayed line.
Furthermore, if you are on the first line and you want to pick the next
item on the minibuffer history you are forced to press down until the
last line. Ditto if you are on the last line and want to pick the
preceding item on the minibuffer.

A safer option seems to disable up/down history navigation when the
minibuffer contains more than one line. Use M-p/M-n instead.