Re: A better UI than perform-replace

[Eric Ludlam]

On 11/16/2015 06:47 AM, Oleh Krehel wrote:
> Dmitry Gutov <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > 5. Feel hugely motivated, and write a better UI for all of that.
>
> I think a better UI for `perform-replace' is warranted.  The current
> thing is very basic:
>
> - No good way to see how many matches there are.
> - No good way to get an overview of matches per buffer.
> - No good way to pause the replacement procedure.
> - No good way to undo a replacement.
>
> An idea to improve this would be with a permanent *replace* buffer,
> similar to `dired' or *Buffer List*. This buffer would be visible during
> the replacement operation, together with the actual buffers that contain
> the candidates. Here are some ideas for key bindings and the general
> interface:

You may be interested in the way semantic-symref handles broad renames. 
 The basic workflow is:

Place cursor in a declaration you want to rename

M-x semantic-symref RET

Or use

M-x semantic-symref-symbol RET

for an arbitrary symbol.

You then look through the hits, expand the ones you think are valid, 
collapse the ones you think aren't valid.  Or expand/contract all, of 
course.

Press R to start a rename.  Type in the new name.  Everything is 
replaced.   If you don't like it, just undo whichever buffer you made a 
mistake with.

Eric ... Following up on interesting things slowly.