Re: menu select suggestion

[dana <dana@dana.is>]

On 15 Oct 2019, at 12:32, Perry Smith <pedz@easesoftware.com> wrote:
> Is there a section in the man pages or the manual that describes the
> various user interfaces?

The completion documentation is spread across several different pages.

zshoptions describes the shell options that control completion (you may be
interested in menu_complete, which affects the tab behaviour you mentioned):

  http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Options.html#Completion-2

zshcompsys describes the styles (settings) that control completion, including
the `menu` one you mentioned (try Ctrl+F `menu completion`), amongst other
things:

  http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Completion-System.html

zshmodules describes the zsh/complist module, which provides some of the
fancier completion functionality (including menu selection):

  http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Zsh-Modules.html#The-zsh_002fcomplist-Module


Those three probably answer whatever questions you have about the actual UI,
but there are also a few others:

zshcompwid describes how compadd and widgets work:

  http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Completion-Widgets.html

zshzle describes ZLE, which is the line editor that handles key bindings and
widget definitions:

  http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/Release/Zsh-Line-Editor.html#Zsh-Line-Editor

zshcompctl describes the old completion system (compctl). You should never use
this, so i won't bother linking it, but if you come across it in your studies,
that's what it is.


The complex nature of the documentation reflects the fact that the completion
system is spread across several different components, and the way they all fit
together, and the terminology they use, can be confusing. For example, AFAIK,
the menu_complete option doesn't really have anything to do with the menu
completion we're talking about here, and menu selection is yet another thing.
I definitely can't claim to understand all of it myself

dana