abo-abo
Alternative navigation mode: isearch + number for jump
I wonder if it would be easy to add the following alternative mode of navigation:
- Invoke avy
- Type anything -> avy highlights all matches as in isearch does, but with numeric prefix in front of it
- Presss numeric prefix -> avy jumps to the choice
I am used to this mode of navigation in conkeror and after a year of trying ace-jump-mode I am inclined to think that the numeric way is actually more efficient. Any thoughts?
It goes half way in that direction. What I describe is a merger of avy-goto-char-timer and avy-goto-char. I want numeric prefixes to be displayed in front of the match as I am typing.
Attaching a screenshot of how this looks in conkeror.
I see. While it's doable, I don't think it will look good: as you enter the first char, your screen will fill up with a bunch of overlays that are obscuring the thing you're looking for.
You're welcome to try to implement it. See ace-window-display-mode for reference; combine it with avy--read-candidates.
I don't think it will look good: as you enter the first char, your screen will fill up with a bunch of overlays that are obscuring the thing you're looking for.
Normally you type quickly the word you want to get to. So hopefully there are a few of such matches. It works well with links, but text is a different story. Will try to find time to give it a bang.
Another problem just occurred to me: the selection overlays won't be the same as the input changes.
Suppose the user inputted 3 chars before selecting an overlay char. At this point, 2 sets of wrong overlay chars were shown, and one correct. This is with respect to the last input, the wrong overlays were correct when the input was one or two chars. If we don't want to show incorrect info, we're back to avy-goto-char-timer. The only way to keep the overlays always correct is to have <10 candidates after the first char.
I am not following on this; I guess it's an implementation detail. For sure, the overlays should change as the input changes. The input should not be limited to 10 candidates, but to any number of and overlay-numbers should be in increasing order all the time.