Debian Bug report logs - #990353
readline-common: make autocompletion case insensitive and display suggestions by default

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Message #5 received at submit@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Samuel Henrique <samueloph@debian.org>

To: Debian Bug Tracking System <submit@bugs.debian.org>

Subject: readline-common: make autocompletion case insensitive and display suggestions by default

Date: Sat, 26 Jun 2021 21:12:33 +0100

[Message part 1 (text/plain, inline)]

Package: readline-common
X-Debbugs-Cc: samueloph@debian.org
Severity: wishlist
Tags: patch

Hello Matthias,

I've recently stumbled upon someone else having this issue once again,
and it made me realize I have never sent a patch for it before, as I'm
used to having this in my systems.

I'm not aware of any compatibility issue related to enabling these two
options, and I'm assuming that this is a non-controversial change.
Judging by the amount of people asking for this online, even having
memes about it[0], I consider this to be wanted by most if not all of
our users.

I can try to make a case if you disagree with it, but I assume it's
just the sort of issue nobody cared enough to patch yet. Also because
some users eventually switched to zsh just for this feature.

The options I'm talking about are:
set completion-ignore-case On
set show-all-if-ambiguous On

I'd also like to offer my help to move the packaging to salsa, if
you're interested in it. I know you take care of lots of important
packages and you might not have the time to do it (assuming it's not
your intention to keep packaging off of salsa).

Thanks for considering.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/ProgrammerHumor/comments/jqx89l/linux_be_like/

-- 
Samuel Henrique <samueloph>

[autocompletion.patch (text/x-patch, attachment)]

Message #10 received at 990353@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>

To: 990353@bugs.debian.org, Samuel Henrique <samueloph@debian.org>

Subject: Re: readline-common: make autocompletion case insensitive and display suggestions by default

Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 08:39:00 +0200

As discussed at DebConf, I'll add these as comments in the inputrc file.  I 
think that the behavior for the completion on first tab is worse, if you have 
too many completions and your complete window is scrolled up.

Same about the case sensitive option.  I'm wondering if this setting could be 
automated depending on the locale (e.g. if the locale is case insensitive, 
LC_COLLATE?)

Are these options really meant to be in the emacs-mode section?

Message #15 received at 990353@bugs.debian.org (full text, mbox, reply):

From: Samuel Henrique <samueloph@debian.org>

To: Matthias Klose <doko@debian.org>

Cc: 990353@bugs.debian.org

Subject: Re: readline-common: make autocompletion case insensitive and display suggestions by default

Date: Thu, 28 Jul 2022 20:42:52 +0100

Hello Matthias,

> As discussed at DebConf, I'll add these as comments in the inputrc file.  I
> think that the behavior for the completion on first tab is worse, if you have
> too many completions and your complete window is scrolled up.

I think this is not correct, we were testing this together and we
noticed that whenever there's too many suggestions to show, the user
needs to confirm that it really wants to get it, for example:
$ cd /proc/
Display all 363 possibilities? (y or n)

The user needs to type "y" to get all the suggestions.

> Same about the case sensitive option.  I'm wondering if this setting could be
> automated depending on the locale (e.g. if the locale is case insensitive,
> LC_COLLATE?)

For case sensitivity the same applies, the user needs to confirm to
see all of the suggestions if there are too many.

> Are these options really meant to be in the emacs-mode section?

No, that was me not paying enough attention on where to put the new settings.

I appreciate the consideration, and I would like to have these options
enabled by default, as new users are not aware of the existence of
them and experienced users will know how to disable it, if they wish.
But I also think there's still a benefit for our users if you only
want to add these commented out (disabled).

If you decide to not make it the default, would you mind leaving this
bug open so at least I can keep track of this request and possibly
point other people to it if they're interested in following it?

Thanks for considering!

-- 
Samuel Henrique <samueloph>

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