6 ms·

Autocomplete as an interface

66 points by luu 11y ago

danpeddle 11y ago
UX in its rawest sense, although with a programmer slant. That said, programmers are a subset of a wider group (spoiler: it's us!) and it would be nice to see these patterns break out of the developer world, so they can evolve further. Consider, when was the last time you saw a website with perfect keyboard integration..? The lack of universal patterns does get in the way (as does keyboard-less devices, which are clearly a whole other paradigm), but still..
thomasballinger 11y ago
I feel similarly about autocomplete (particularly the "best way to learn Python" bit) and suggest Python users looking for autocompletion similar to zsh at the command line pip install bpython (which I work on). See https://github.com/bpython/bpython https://github.com/bpython/bpython for source, http://ballingt.com/bpython-curtsies http://ballingt.com/bpython-curtsies for some (old) gifs. More generally, build your own tools like this with the excellent Python Prompt Toolkit! (https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt-toolkit https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt-toolkit)
- StavrosK 11y ago
  I'm not sure if it's just me, but I couldn't find a list of shortcut keys in the documentation and I kind of went back to IPython. I think half of it is that the F1 key was bound to help in the terminal, so I couldn't look with that, but you may definitely want to add something to the site to list keys and features.
  - thomasballinger 11y ago
    Great point, particularly relevant to autocompletion: IPython magics are tab completable and therefore more discoverable than bpython special keys. Real quick, they're emacs-style readline keys but with ctrl-r for undo. F1-F10 do things too. Docs for shortcut keys, for anyone F1 doesn't work for: http://docs.bpython-interpreter.org/configuration.html#keyboard http://docs.bpython-interpreter.org/configuration.html#keybo... The F1 issue with GNOME terminal is frustrating, I agree a cheatsheet-style help page on the site would be good. I've been meaning to do this for a while and might finally get time to work through backlog next week :)
    - StavrosK 11y ago
      The page you linked technically has all the information I need, but it's hidden among emacs-style movement commands and is a bit cumbersome to read. Consider something like: * F8 - Upload current session to pastebin. * F6 - Reimport everything. * F5 - Watch imports and re-run entire session if one of the imports changes. That would both showcase these fantastic features (I didn't know about them until right now when I tried to write this comment), and allow me to try them right away in the bpython interpreter I have just installed. I had spotted a very nice hotkey that takes you to the source of the function that was being autocompleted but I can't find it again on that page. That's how bad the current page is :P
richardboegli 11y ago
Tell Me is part of Office 2016 desktop edition [1] It has been part of Office 365 since 2014 [2]: Available now, an easier, faster and more convenient way of doing things in Word – Tell Me. Tell Me understands what you’re trying to accomplish and helps you do it faster. So if I’m trying to make my document horizontal, Tell Me knows it’s the orientation feature I’m looking for. It brings everything I need to my fingertips. [1] https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/22/thenewoffice/ https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/22/thenewoffice/ [2] https://blogs.office.com/2014/01/22/new-year-more-goodness-tell-me-footnotes-and-endnotes-and-more/ https://blogs.office.com/2014/01/22/new-year-more-goodness-t...
agumonkey 11y ago
I'm sure if it's only the work of the Ubuntu team, but they added GTK-holistic autocompletion for menus. After seeing office workers cry everytime a menu layout changed, I'd be very interested in seeing them having fuzzy search like this.
- paxcoder 11y ago
  Please edit your post and add a link. Do not reply to this comment, it will be removed. EDIT: It seems "agumonkey" just downvoted me, so here's what I managed to find: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity/HUD https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity/HUD
  - melling 11y ago
    He can't downvote you because your post is a direct child of his.
    - paxcoder 11y ago
      Thanks, didn't know. So unless he has a few sock accounts, is HUD common knowledge among Unity users and that's why I'm being downvoted, or is it just downvote frenzy?
      - onli 11y ago
        HUD was a big announcement back then. I don't know how many people that use Unity know about it now, but it is not that esoteric. You are downvoted because of how your comment sounds and the false "the comment will be removed".
        paxcoder 11y ago
        The parent failed to add a link, so I did. That's why it's staying up. The way it sounds maybe partially, but I'm going to go with downvote frenzy for the rest. Never mind, an upvote frienzy around another comment of mine is keeping me afloat.
octatoan 11y ago
Re the point made at the end: there's a ton of fuzzy completion engines.
melling 11y ago
We need some sort of advanced autocompletion where a dictionary is used when creating variable names, for example. This would be helpful if we ever want to be able to program on tablets. It'll probably never be as fast as with a keyboard but it might be useful when taking a bus or subway.
iandanforth 11y ago
Nitpick. The author is conflating "tab completion" and "autocomplete." The interactions are very different. Tab completion is an active request for information where autocomplete is a prompt or suggestion. Pull vs Push. Google autocompletes your search queries. Bash and zsh offer tab completion as a feature. iPython and Sublime have both tab completion and autocomplete, but they are different interactions.
- ketralnis 11y ago
  I don't think I agree. I think that autocomplete is just a better UI for what you're trying to accomplish with tab completion, and also happens to be discoverable

66 points by luu 11y ago

UX in its rawest sense, although with a programmer slant. That said, programmers are a subset of a wider group (spoiler: it's us!) and it would be nice to see these patterns break out of the developer world, so they can evolve further. Consider, when was the last time you saw a website with perfect keyboard integration..? The lack of universal patterns does get in the way (as does keyboard-less devices, which are clearly a whole other paradigm), but still..

thomasballinger 11y ago

I feel similarly about autocomplete (particularly the "best way to learn Python" bit) and suggest Python users looking for autocompletion similar to zsh at the command line pip install bpython (which I work on). See https://github.com/bpython/bpython https://github.com/bpython/bpython for source, http://ballingt.com/bpython-curtsies http://ballingt.com/bpython-curtsies for some (old) gifs. More generally, build your own tools like this with the excellent Python Prompt Toolkit! (https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt-toolkit https://github.com/jonathanslenders/python-prompt-toolkit)

StavrosK 11y ago
I'm not sure if it's just me, but I couldn't find a list of shortcut keys in the documentation and I kind of went back to IPython. I think half of it is that the F1 key was bound to help in the terminal, so I couldn't look with that, but you may definitely want to add something to the site to list keys and features.
- thomasballinger 11y ago
  Great point, particularly relevant to autocompletion: IPython magics are tab completable and therefore more discoverable than bpython special keys. Real quick, they're emacs-style readline keys but with ctrl-r for undo. F1-F10 do things too. Docs for shortcut keys, for anyone F1 doesn't work for: http://docs.bpython-interpreter.org/configuration.html#keyboard http://docs.bpython-interpreter.org/configuration.html#keybo... The F1 issue with GNOME terminal is frustrating, I agree a cheatsheet-style help page on the site would be good. I've been meaning to do this for a while and might finally get time to work through backlog next week :)
  - StavrosK 11y ago
    The page you linked technically has all the information I need, but it's hidden among emacs-style movement commands and is a bit cumbersome to read. Consider something like: * F8 - Upload current session to pastebin. * F6 - Reimport everything. * F5 - Watch imports and re-run entire session if one of the imports changes. That would both showcase these fantastic features (I didn't know about them until right now when I tried to write this comment), and allow me to try them right away in the bpython interpreter I have just installed. I had spotted a very nice hotkey that takes you to the source of the function that was being autocompleted but I can't find it again on that page. That's how bad the current page is :P

richardboegli 11y ago

Tell Me is part of Office 2016 desktop edition [1] It has been part of Office 365 since 2014 [2]: Available now, an easier, faster and more convenient way of doing things in Word – Tell Me. Tell Me understands what you’re trying to accomplish and helps you do it faster. So if I’m trying to make my document horizontal, Tell Me knows it’s the orientation feature I’m looking for. It brings everything I need to my fingertips. [1] https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/22/thenewoffice/ https://blogs.office.com/2015/09/22/thenewoffice/ [2] https://blogs.office.com/2014/01/22/new-year-more-goodness-tell-me-footnotes-and-endnotes-and-more/ https://blogs.office.com/2014/01/22/new-year-more-goodness-t...

agumonkey 11y ago

I'm sure if it's only the work of the Ubuntu team, but they added GTK-holistic autocompletion for menus. After seeing office workers cry everytime a menu layout changed, I'd be very interested in seeing them having fuzzy search like this.

paxcoder 11y ago
Please edit your post and add a link. Do not reply to this comment, it will be removed. EDIT: It seems "agumonkey" just downvoted me, so here's what I managed to find: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity/HUD https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity/HUD
- melling 11y ago
  He can't downvote you because your post is a direct child of his.
  - paxcoder 11y ago
    Thanks, didn't know. So unless he has a few sock accounts, is HUD common knowledge among Unity users and that's why I'm being downvoted, or is it just downvote frenzy?
    - onli 11y ago
      HUD was a big announcement back then. I don't know how many people that use Unity know about it now, but it is not that esoteric. You are downvoted because of how your comment sounds and the false "the comment will be removed".
      - paxcoder 11y ago
        The parent failed to add a link, so I did. That's why it's staying up. The way it sounds maybe partially, but I'm going to go with downvote frenzy for the rest. Never mind, an upvote frienzy around another comment of mine is keeping me afloat.

octatoan 11y ago

Re the point made at the end: there's a ton of fuzzy completion engines.

melling 11y ago

We need some sort of advanced autocompletion where a dictionary is used when creating variable names, for example. This would be helpful if we ever want to be able to program on tablets. It'll probably never be as fast as with a keyboard but it might be useful when taking a bus or subway.

iandanforth 11y ago

Nitpick. The author is conflating "tab completion" and "autocomplete." The interactions are very different. Tab completion is an active request for information where autocomplete is a prompt or suggestion. Pull vs Push. Google autocompletes your search queries. Bash and zsh offer tab completion as a feature. iPython and Sublime have both tab completion and autocomplete, but they are different interactions.

ketralnis 11y ago
I don't think I agree. I think that autocomplete is just a better UI for what you're trying to accomplish with tab completion, and also happens to be discoverable