Completing words without popup: is it possible?

dimsuz · February 19, 2025, 1:06am

Hi! I’m a bit new to Kakoune, but not shy of shell scripting or C programming.

Some editors have a feature which I really like: word completion without the completion popup. It works like this:

Partially type some word
Press a certain keybinding → first available word completion is inserted, without the popup
Press kebinding again → next available word completion is inserted
Repeat pressing while the desired completion is found (insertion of candidates wraps around if end is reached)

In Emacs this is called dabbrev-expand for example and is usually bound to Alt + /.

I wasn’t able to find such functionality, so I would like to implement it for myself, but I’m not sure how to.

I’ve searched :doc expansions and found no expansion which would give me word completions, also I’m not sure how to approach “cycling” them in the insert mode.

Any help or pointers in the right direction are appreciated!

cipharius · February 19, 2025, 9:40am

Closest thing you could do is stop the completion popup from automatically appearing:

set-option global autocomplete prompt

Now the completion popup will only appear when you press either C-n or C-p.

The insert_completer seems to be hardcoded to show a menu with completions:

github.com

mawww/kakoune/blob/master/src/insert_completer.cc#L617


      
              catch (runtime_error& e)
              {
                  write_to_debug_buffer(format("error while trying to run completer: {}", e.what()));
                  return false;
              }
              if (not m_completions.is_valid())
                  return false;
          
              kak_assert(m_completions.begin <= sels.main().cursor());
              m_current_candidate = m_completions.candidates.size();
              menu_show();
              m_completions.candidates.push_back({sels.buffer().string(m_completions.begin, m_completions.end), "", {}});
              return true;
          }
          
          void InsertCompleter::explicit_file_complete()
          {
              try_complete(complete_filename<false>);
              m_explicit_completer = complete_filename<false>;
          }

dimsuz · February 19, 2025, 6:20pm

Yes, I have already disabled auto-popup with that option.

So it seems like no way to achieve this currently. I can think of writing a custom program which would manually scan buffer for words and return successive completions, but this is more complex stuff: need to do basic lexing, etc.

alexherbo2 · February 20, 2025, 1:26pm

It could be possible with an explicit command to hide the completion menu, similarly to <c-o> in insert mode.

dimsuz · February 20, 2025, 3:52pm

Right this could work!

mahulst · February 21, 2025, 5:12pm

I’ve been looking for this as well.
@alexherbo2 you are saying it isn’t possible now if I understand correctly? the ‘c-o’ thing reauires a change on kakoune’s side?

alexherbo2 · February 21, 2025, 6:01pm

Yes, I asked @mawww on Discord what did he think about it. It doesn’t require changing ctrl-o, as ctrl-o disables completion, but another insert command that could be useful interactively to hide the menu when it hides the contents behind.