Re: Using ido-completions in other packages

[Stefan Monnier]

> I was wondering if it would be possible to use the nice ido-mode
> completion elsewhere.

I'm not sure exactly which parts of "ido-mode completion" interest you,
but note that Emacs-23's default completion is a lot more powerful and
flexible than before.  Some of that is enabled by default (M-x r-e-b RET
will call report-emacs-bug and C-x C-f /u/s/d will get you to
/usr/share/doc), while other parts are not.

E.g. additionally to the partial-completion style enabled in Emacs-23,
you can use substring completion (C-x b oba TAB will select the "foobar"
buffer (and/or other buffers whose name have "oba" somewhere)).
Take a look at `completion-styles' (`substring' was not in Emacs-23,
but can be added easily).

You can also have a list of completion candidates displayed "on the fly"
in the minibuffer with M-x icomplete-mode (that was already available
in earlier Emacsen).

And you can cycle through completion candidates with the command
minibuffer-force-complete (not bound by default, but I personally bind
it to M-TAB in minibuffer-local-completion-map).  Or in Emacs-Bzr you
can make minibuffer-complete cycle if there are few enough candidates
(using completion-cycle-threshold).

If you want other parts of ido-style completion included in Emacs's
default completion, feel free to send such requests via M-x
report-emacs-bug (ideally accompanied by a patch, of course).


        Stefan