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TL;DR: Is it possible to make emacs use single-column completion?
When using emacs' completion mechanisms and there are multiple possibilities, then completions are displayed in a separate window, e.g.
Possible completions are:
i i-search
i1 i18n
i2 i3
iar ibm
ibm1047 ibm1047-dos
ibm1047-mac ibm1047-unix
ibm437 ibm437-dos
ibm437-mac ibm437-unix
ibm775 ibm775-dos
ibm775-mac ibm775-unix
ibm850 ibm850-dos
ibm850-mac ibm850-unix
ibm851 ibm851-dos
ibm851-mac ibm851-unix
ibm852 ibm852-dos
ibm852-mac ibm852-unix
ibm855 ibm855-dos
ibm855-mac ibm855-unix
ibm857 ibm857-dos
While this format is perfectly fine for a few items, when the list is long having successive completions on the same line, i.e. ordered as
1 2
3 4
5 6
is rather distracting. Ideally I'd prefer an ordering
1 4
2 5
3 6
but I fear this is not possible, since it wouldn't be able to handle completions, that are wider than each column. Emacs in this case uses a format
111 222
33333333
444 5555
which works only because of the "horizontal first" ordering; Also my preferred ordering would require adjustig the completion-buffer contents depending on window height (likewise unpracticable).
So as an alternative I'd like completion to use only one column, i.e.
Possible completions are:
i
i-search
i1
i18n
i2
i3
iar
ibm
ibm1047
ibm1047-dos
ibm1047-mac
ibm1047-unix
ibm437
ibm437-dos
ibm437-mac
ibm437-unix
which I'd find easier to scan visually.
Is this possible?
There are now an accepted answer in https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/38509/.
– Name – 2018-02-01T05:28:08.227