On Fri, Apr 20, 2007 at 11:06:24PM EDT, A.J.Mechelynck wrote:
> cga2000 wrote:
> >I recently installed vim 7.x and I'm very impressed with all the new
> >features, especially the new tab stuff ..
> >
> >On the other hand, I'm sorry to say that there is _ONE_ feature that's
> >literally driving me _NUTS_.
> >
> >If I hit the CTRL-P combo by accident .. "p" is very close to "[" ..
> >and I use CTRL-[ a lot .. well, some "popup menu" materializes out of
> >the blue .. presenting me with a list of "completion" choices ..
> >
> >Thanks, but I am not senile or otherwise mentally challenged .. I know
> >what I want to type .. and most of the time vim does not .. and since I
> >can type reasonably well .. I do _NOT_ need this completion "feature".
> >
> >Is there any way I can turn of this completion popup .. ?
> >
> >Since unwanted popups is one of the absolute evils of the web .. I'm
> >unsure why this should have become a default feature of the current
> >version vim and I sincerely hope it will cease to be the default with
> >the next release.
> >
> >Maybe this might make some sense for GUI users .. but could it be left
> >our of the terminal version?
> >
> >Thanks,
> >cga
> >
> >
>
> :imap <C-P> <Nop>
>
> will make it do nothing. Another possibility (I think) is
>
> :set complete=
As it turns out the way to turn this off is
:set completeopt=
I have to read the entire doc, but as far as I can tell this takes care
of reinstating the normal vim behavior where repeating CTRL-P will
toggle the successive completions.
I'll add this to my .vimrc right after this.
So, maybe I over-reacted but after over a month when I must have hit
CTRL-[ hundreds of times (I don't use the <Esc> key) .. typing CTRL-P
instead had never happened to me once.
Now, I'm in the middle of something rather involved .. it's the end of
the day .. I'm tired .. hungry .. frustrated .. and suddenly there
appears this huge long rectangle of some bright pink color masking a
sizeable chunk of whatever I am doing .. now what .. have I been
rooted..? So unexpected that it must have taken me at least ten seconds
before I realized that this artifact was meant to be a popup menu.
Because you see, the text on this menu (non-GUI) is a barely legible
light grey on a pink background. Even with the default color scheme.
And guess what .. after this rude encounter with progress .. I tried
to continue my editing session .. I was so upset that I kept hitting
CTRL-P instead of CTRL-[ .. must've done it a dozen times ..
I don't believe in using completion any more .. too much overhead to be
worth the trouble .. I'd rather work on my typing skills. All the same
I'm rather curious as to why this was implemented via a popup menu that
masks part of the contents of the buffer rather than some kind of
mini-window ..
I'll have to search the archives .. see if there was some kind of
discussion at one point over this implementation choice?
I find it rather hard to believe that I am the only user of vim to
regard this as .. hmm.. I think "wrong" is the word.
In the future I guess I'll have to read the release notes carefully to
avoid such nasty surprises.
> which should (IIUC) disable both Ctrl-N and Ctrl-P except when the popup is
> _already_ up.
>
> A third possibility is to disable the +insert_expand feature at
> compile-time.
>
>
> BTW, me too I know what I want to type, but I found out recently that for
> _long_ words which have already been used in the current session (or in any
> file still listed in the buffer list) it is often more efficient (and less
> error-prone) to type the first letter(s) then Ctrl-N, then maybe a few
> additional Ctrl-N's to select the right entry, than to type the whole
> shebang by hand again. If there are too many completions, Ctrl-P to get
> back to what I typed then add letters one by one, will usually narrow the
> choices to just a few, including the one I want.
Makes sense when you have to work on somebody else's screwy source with
function & variable names long as your arm .. maybe. I think my main
beef with completion is that even in vim you need to juggle at least
three different mechanisms .. Insert-mode completion as above .. Ex mode
.. and whatever completions your shell allows .. The latter is not vim
sensu stricto .. but since I often escape to a shell from a vim
session, the bottom line is that it adds up to a lot of acrobatics.
So I have decided to live with the typos .. they punish me .. I improve.
> And yes, I use mostly gvim, but I would use it the same way in Console vim.
>
>
> As for making it the default in console Vim only, I don't see why a feature
> which works identically in gvim and console Vim should have different
> defaults in both, especially when it is easy to disable it in the vimrc.
Works?
No it doesn't .. it _works_ in gvim because popups .. context menus ..
belong in the GUI world .. and it doesn't work on a terminal because
popups .. context menus .. do not belong in the terminal world.
Besides, I you _have_ to have completion .. the traditional CTRL-P
mechanism that goes down your list one entry at a time and places the
successive choices right where you need them rather than presenting you
with the whole list and masking possibly useful data in the process
strikes me as considerably more effective.
Definitely anti-KISS.
> As for disabling Insert-mode completion by default in both console Vim and
> gvim, don't count on it: Bram has a long history of preferring whatever
> doesn't break existing behaviour, and I can't fault him on that. ;-)
You mean Bram doesn't learn from his mistakes like the rest of us?
Just kidding ..
:-)
Thanks,
cga
