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I think both built-in completing read and helm/ivy have their uses. ido is best for when you know what you want and want to get it to it with minimal number of

by gleb 11y ago

I think both built-in completing read and helm/ivy have their uses. ido is best for when you know what you want and want to get it to it with minimal number of keystrokes. helm seems better for when you want to review many (but not too many) options before deciding on what you want. I find ido unusable for find-file, because of how it splits up directory from filename. So I use the builtin completion. But I rarely open files using find-file anymore. ido-use-virtual-buffers is magical. For commonly opened files it let you use switch-to-buffer whether the file is opened or not. (require 'recentf) (recentf-mode t) (setq recentf-max-saved-items 200) (setq ido-use-virtual-buffers t) ; include recentf files While, something like this works better with helm: (require 'yari) (define-key ruby-mode-map [(meta h)] 'yari-helm)

benaiah 11y ago
I love ido's find-file, but I think that's because I've made it behave much differently than the defaults. The ability to use backspace to go up one full directory, jump to home with ~/ at any point, jump to / with // at any point, and navigate folders quickly with fuzzy matching and RET is really, really nice. To be fair, most of my file opening is done with projectile, which, when you exclude the right files and use ido, works fantastically well. I can get to nearly anything I've been working on in two commands - projectile-switch-to-project (C-c p p) and projectile-find-file (C-c p f). I'm not sure what you mean by "how it splits up directory from filename" - could you clarify? ido-use-virtual-buffers is indeed awesome - I really love it.
- gleb 11y ago
  Do find-file. Now I see current directory as the default suggestion. Can C-a, C-b, Backspace, etc. within it. Do ido-find-file. Now I see current directory as part of the prompt. Cannot C-a, C-b, Backspace, etc. within it.
  - benaiah 11y ago
    Ah, I see. This is actually one of my favorite features of ido-find-file. I love the fact that I can treat the current path section I'm writing as independent of the path I've already navigated to. To each their own.
- adamrt 11y ago
  I can't reply to gleb's comment below, so I will respond here. After ido-find-file you can do C-f and edit the line like find-file does.
- blaenk 11y ago
  FWIW, you can do that stuff with helm as well. Except it's C-l to go up a directory by default, IIRC.

by gleb 11y ago

benaiah 11y ago

I love ido's find-file, but I think that's because I've made it behave much differently than the defaults. The ability to use backspace to go up one full directory, jump to home with ~/ at any point, jump to / with // at any point, and navigate folders quickly with fuzzy matching and RET is really, really nice. To be fair, most of my file opening is done with projectile, which, when you exclude the right files and use ido, works fantastically well. I can get to nearly anything I've been working on in two commands - projectile-switch-to-project (C-c p p) and projectile-find-file (C-c p f). I'm not sure what you mean by "how it splits up directory from filename" - could you clarify? ido-use-virtual-buffers is indeed awesome - I really love it.

gleb 11y ago
Do find-file. Now I see current directory as the default suggestion. Can C-a, C-b, Backspace, etc. within it. Do ido-find-file. Now I see current directory as part of the prompt. Cannot C-a, C-b, Backspace, etc. within it.
- benaiah 11y ago
  Ah, I see. This is actually one of my favorite features of ido-find-file. I love the fact that I can treat the current path section I'm writing as independent of the path I've already navigated to. To each their own.
adamrt 11y ago
I can't reply to gleb's comment below, so I will respond here. After ido-find-file you can do C-f and edit the line like find-file does.
blaenk 11y ago
FWIW, you can do that stuff with helm as well. Except it's C-l to go up a directory by default, IIRC.