5 ms·

Emacs always has an embryonic version of that with M-x, but with a simple autocomplete. That’s is, until Helm arrived in 2011: it made everything that is a list

Emacs always has an embryonic version of that with M-x, but with a simple autocomplete. That’s is, until Helm arrived in 2011: it made everything that is a list something to be dynamically filtered (commands, shortcuts, buffers, files, etc). IntelliJ has a command palette too (Ctrl-Shift-a), but it’s horribly slow and has many items with the same name doing different things (try looking for “settings” for example). But it does allow you to add a shortcut to a command you find on the fly, which is great. [0] https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm https://github.com/emacs-helm/helm

tra3 5y ago
Yeah I’m surprised nobody mentioned emacs. The only thing missing is auto complete not just on command names but the descriptions also.
- NateEag 5y ago
  I was just thinking that someone should really implement this via extension. Then I thought "...assuming it isn't already built in somewhere." Looks like it's `apropos-documentation`: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Apropos.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Ap... Can't be too hard to hook that up to one of the auto-complete M-x replacements. Someday I'll read that while manual. Someday.
  - tra3 5y ago
    Right? I've been emacsing for a couple of years now but I haven't reached the critical mass yet; where I can sit down and just code something up like this. Anyway, M-x-helm is pretty critical to my workflow; half forgotten (or guessed) commands work pretty dang well when you can complete them.
    - NateEag 5y ago
      I moved from Helm to Ivy a while back, but yeah. Booting into vanilla Emacs is almost a foreign country to me now.
themodelplumber 5y ago
Is Helm an emacs thing I should look into if I want autocomplete? Trying to stay pretty vanilla but I'm already wishing for that feature.
- sidpatil 5y ago
  You might be interested in company-mode [1]. [1] https://company-mode.github.io/ https://company-mode.github.io/
  - ashton314 5y ago
    Company handles completion-at-point stuff. I think the op might be asking about a command completion framework.
- donatzsky 5y ago
  Depends on the type of autocomplete you mean. For code, company mode is probably what you want. For the minibuffer, Ido (or fido if you want super-vanilla) plus which-key will get you far. Here's what I have in my init.el: ;;(fido-mode 1) (ido-mode 1) (setq ido-enable-flex-matching t) (setq ido-everywhere t) ; Also work with C-x C-f (use-package which-key :ensure t :delight :init (which-key-mode)) Delight is used to change or remove mode-line indicators for both major and minor modes.
- ashton314 5y ago
  Helm is a huge package. If you want something that stays closer to a vanilla experience, check out Daniel Mendler’s Vertico package: https://github.com/minad/vertico https://github.com/minad/vertico He’s got a bunch of other really nice lightweight packages that leverage built-in completion mechanisms. See also https://github.com/minad/vertico#complementary-packages https://github.com/minad/vertico#complementary-packages
thom 5y ago
Worth pointing out that Helm was a fork of anything.el, and I’m pretty sure stuff like Icicles predates even that by as much as a decade, so 2011 is underselling Emacs a bit here.
- gpderetta 5y ago
  Ido is very old as well. The earliest reference I can find is 1996.
- akho 5y ago
  Ido started in mid-90s (and is in core Emacs since 2007).
- dmortin 5y ago
  According to emacswiki anything.el (which was the predecessor of Helm) started in 2007. Compared to that Sublime v2 which had the command palette according to the article, came out in 2013.

tra3 5y ago

Yeah I’m surprised nobody mentioned emacs. The only thing missing is auto complete not just on command names but the descriptions also.

NateEag 5y ago
I was just thinking that someone should really implement this via extension. Then I thought "...assuming it isn't already built in somewhere." Looks like it's `apropos-documentation`: https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Apropos.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Ap... Can't be too hard to hook that up to one of the auto-complete M-x replacements. Someday I'll read that while manual. Someday.
- tra3 5y ago
  Right? I've been emacsing for a couple of years now but I haven't reached the critical mass yet; where I can sit down and just code something up like this. Anyway, M-x-helm is pretty critical to my workflow; half forgotten (or guessed) commands work pretty dang well when you can complete them.
  - NateEag 5y ago
    I moved from Helm to Ivy a while back, but yeah. Booting into vanilla Emacs is almost a foreign country to me now.

themodelplumber 5y ago

Is Helm an emacs thing I should look into if I want autocomplete? Trying to stay pretty vanilla but I'm already wishing for that feature.

sidpatil 5y ago
You might be interested in company-mode [1]. [1] https://company-mode.github.io/ https://company-mode.github.io/
- ashton314 5y ago
  Company handles completion-at-point stuff. I think the op might be asking about a command completion framework.
donatzsky 5y ago
Depends on the type of autocomplete you mean. For code, company mode is probably what you want. For the minibuffer, Ido (or fido if you want super-vanilla) plus which-key will get you far. Here's what I have in my init.el: ;;(fido-mode 1) (ido-mode 1) (setq ido-enable-flex-matching t) (setq ido-everywhere t) ; Also work with C-x C-f (use-package which-key :ensure t :delight :init (which-key-mode)) Delight is used to change or remove mode-line indicators for both major and minor modes.
ashton314 5y ago
Helm is a huge package. If you want something that stays closer to a vanilla experience, check out Daniel Mendler’s Vertico package: https://github.com/minad/vertico https://github.com/minad/vertico He’s got a bunch of other really nice lightweight packages that leverage built-in completion mechanisms. See also https://github.com/minad/vertico#complementary-packages https://github.com/minad/vertico#complementary-packages

thom 5y ago

Worth pointing out that Helm was a fork of anything.el, and I’m pretty sure stuff like Icicles predates even that by as much as a decade, so 2011 is underselling Emacs a bit here.

gpderetta 5y ago
Ido is very old as well. The earliest reference I can find is 1996.
akho 5y ago
Ido started in mid-90s (and is in core Emacs since 2007).
dmortin 5y ago
According to emacswiki anything.el (which was the predecessor of Helm) started in 2007. Compared to that Sublime v2 which had the command palette according to the article, came out in 2013.