how to make emacs ido not rotate the whole list of options?

2
votes

In emacs ido options, the currently selected option is always shown first in the list. When we change e.g. by arrow keys, or C-s / C-r : the whole list is rotated instead of currently selected option moving anywhere. This is very disconcerting for me. To illustrate , assume A, B, C and D are buffers are we are running ido-switch-buffer

  1. Current behaviour

    *A* B C D

Press C-s

*B* C D A

Again press C-s

*C* D A B

  1. What I want is

*A* B C D

Press C-s

A *B* C D

Again press C-s

A B *C* D

I tried setting both "ido-rotate" , and "ido-rotate-file-list-default" to nil as well as t, one by one, but nothing changes in this regard. I don't see any other option in customize-group for ido either. How can I make the selected option move instead of the whole list rotating ?

This is for emacs 26.1, built-in ido.

Edit : With the regular ido mode, I could override the next, previous key-bindings in the following manner :

(define-key ido-buffer-completion-map (kbd "M-)") 'ido-next-match)

With ido-grid-mode, all my attempts to do so are failing. It seems to insist on the hard-coded sets of keys to find next option / previous option. This is also not working :

(define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "M-)") 'ido-next-match)

Any hints I could make ido-grid-mode let me override keys ?

1
emacsido
AFAIK, this is not possible with built in ido options. Also, I think ido-rotate is an internal variable, not an option intended for the user. Maybe there's a package that does what you want; ido-grid-mode seems like it's kind of close. What happens when there are many candidates? It has to start scrolling or rotating at some point. - jpkotta

1 Answers

0
votes

Ok, found the answer. The package ido-grid-mode is indeed what i need, thanks @jpkotta. There is a trick to getting my keybinding work with it.

(defun ido-my-keys ()
"Add my keybindings for Ido."
(define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "M-)") 'ido-next-match)
(define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "M-)") 'ido-prev-match)
)
(ido-grid-mode t)
(add-hook 'ido-setup-hook 'ido-my-keys)

That is to say - ido-grid-mode has to be started before setup hook is added for key bindings. I was doing it after, or completely outside the setup hook, which was not working.

EDIT : Forgot to mention, there is another trick. Hack the ido-grid-mode itself. Make the following change in ido-grid-mode.el :

  ;; ('C-s     (define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "C-s")       #'ido-grid-mode-next))                                                                                                                         
  ;; ('C-r     (define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "C-r")       #'ido-grid-mode-previous))                                                                                                                     
  ('C-s     (define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "M-)")       #'ido-grid-mode-next))                                                                                                                            
  ('C-r     (define-key ido-completion-map (kbd "M-(")       #'ido-grid-mode-previous))