Subject: Re: bug#67691: 29.1.50; Virtual buffers in fido-mode

From: Dmitry Gutov <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 8 Dec 2023 16:07:40 +0200

On 08/12/2023 15:22, João Távora wrote:
> On Fri, Dec 8, 2023 at 12:29 PM Dmitry Gutov <[email-masked]> wrote:
>>
>> On 08/12/2023 13:27, João Távora wrote:
>>>> Also somewhat relevant, from the same question:
>>>>
>>>>> Is there a way to get recentf entries to be appended after the open
>>>>> buffers when I call switch-to-buffer using fido-vertical-mode?
>>>> I'm not the OP but I was in need of much the same functionality.
>>> Maybe this feature (and also the preceding one, I guess) could be
>>> argued for in terms of changes to Emacs's completion frontend
>>> so that it is available to fido, icomplete, vanilla completion,
>>> and maybe more.  But I don't understand exactly what the
>>> feature does (though here it seems simpler than in the previous
>>> one).
>>
>> It's the same feature.
>>
>> I think ido-use-virtual-buffers's docstring has a good explanation.
>>
>> So, two parts:
>>
>> - Using entries from recentf in the list of buffers to switch to.
>> - Color them differently somehow.
> 
> So including files in a buffer list?  Seems odd, but then ido
> had a lot of oddities.

Quite.

> Anyway, I think what I miss most about Ido also solves the
> problem of going to recently visited files.  In Ido, I could
> ido-find-file, type a fragment of a file name and then M-p to
> cycle between those old files that match that pattern

This sounds useful, but it's not something that I do, personally. It 
takes more keypresses and doesn't match the way I think about files and 
projects anyway.

The "virtual buffers" thing sells itself with fast access: you recall 
the name of a previously open file, and just visit it as if the buffer 
already existed. If the base file name is unique enough, that's the 
quickest way to do that. Otherwise, you have to double-check the 
directory it's in.