Autosuggest suggestion does not match actual completion

[fiso64]

This might be a bug, I'm not sure if I'm misunderstanding. I have autosuggest strategy set to completion. I expect the completion I get when pressing tab to be the same as the grey text, but sometimes they're not the same:

[chrisant996]

Those are two different features -- "auto-suggestions" (gray text) versus "completions".

Refer to docs at How Completion Works, which starts by describing the difference between the two features, and also has a link to the documentation section for the auto-suggestions feature.

Also:

• This is duplicate of TAB complete going wrong #637, Clink Tab completion is different than it shows #475, Unexpected tab completion fills #440, and several other issues.
• This is closely related to Combine Auto-Suggestions（HotKey: Right）and Completion（HotKey: Tab）into one, Use Tab as the shortcut key of them ? #556, Change auto completion key #540, Allow cycling through auto suggestions #529, and several other issues.

[fiso64]

I don't know how to describe this in the documentation because I have no idea what it actually does. The completion differing from the suggestion when it doesn't start with the same substring is predictable, I guess. But this doesn't fully explain the differences. Again, AppData\Local\Pack will show a suggestion for AppData\Local\Packages, but completes to AppData\Local\Package Cache. So it's really not the "first of the matching completions" no matter how you look at it.

By the way, I actually had autosuggestions set to off for a long time. Then I noticed that there was (seemingly) a mode in which they would be the same as the completions, but which turned out to be wrong. So it would have made no difference whether it was on or off by default in my case. I guess what could have helped is a little note about the fact that even when the strategy is set to 'completion', the suggestions and actual completions may differ.

[chrisant996]

But this doesn't fully explain the differences. Again, AppData\Local\Pack will show a suggestion for AppData\Local\Packages, but completes to AppData\Local\Package Cache. So it's really not the "first of the matching completions" no matter how you look at it.

AppData\Local\Package Cache requires quotes.

You said it completes to AppData\Local\Package Cache, but no, it completes to "AppData\Local\Package Cache".

Since you didn't type a beginning quote, autosuggestions cannot show a preview of inserting a quote into preceding text you already typed earlier. And so it can't really choose that as a suggestion that matches what's been typed so far, because it doesn't match what's been typed so far.

I guess what could have helped is a little note about the fact that even when the strategy is set to 'completion', the suggestions and actual completions may differ.

Cool. I can come up with something that explains that there will be differences, without going into detail about all the specific cases. I may be able to find someplace in the standalone documentation (the html docs) to mention examples to show the principle of why differences exist, without necessarily listing all the specific combinations and possibilities.

[fiso64]

Since you didn't type a beginning quote, autosuggestions cannot show a preview of inserting a quote into preceding text you already typed earlier

Ohh, of course! I should have thought about this a little longer.

Is it true that all differences can be explained by this, i.e the fact that sometimes it would have to modify the text that has already been typed?
If so, here's an alternative that I think might be a better 'completion' strategy:

Instead of showing the first matching completion which doesn't require inserting any text, really show the first completion, but ignore everything that would have to be inserted. For example, AppData\Local\Pack will show a suggestion for AppData\Local\Package Cache" (without a quote on the left), and if the user has a hidden directory called .hidden-dir and types hidde it will show hidden-dir, without the leading dot.

There is obviously still a discrepancy between completions and the shown suggestions, but it's closer, and I suspect that users who choose the 'completion' strategy would generally like them to be as close as possible. I think this behavior would be more intuitive. However, the insert suggestion command would need to be modified to insert text in what has already been typed when necessary.

Would that work?

[chrisant996]

Is it true that all differences can be explained by this, i.e the fact that sometimes it would have to modify the text that has already been typed?

Yes. But there are multiple variations of ways.

If so, here's an alternative that I think might be a better 'completion' strategy:

Instead of showing the first matching completion which doesn't require inserting any text, really show the first completion, but ignore everything that would have to be inserted. For example, AppData\Local\Pack will show a suggestion for AppData\Local\Package Cache" (without a quote on the left), and if the user has a hidden directory called .hidden-dir and types hidde it will show hidden-dir, without the leading dot.

There is obviously still a discrepancy between completions and the shown suggestions, but it's closer, and I suspect that users who choose the 'completion' strategy would generally like them to be as close as possible. I think this behavior would be more intuitive. However, the insert suggestion command would need to be modified to insert text in what has already been typed when necessary.

Would that work?

No. There are many, many problems with that.

I've spent tens of hours doing research and prototypes. The ideas you're suggesting aren't new. I've considered and explored all of these and found the many ways and cases where they just don't work.

If you want to pursue that, you can. For me, though, this is just rehashing stuff I've already researched deeply. I'm not going to engage in this further. You're overlooking many things, and as you said, you need to think about the details longer and more deeply.

[fiso64]

Understood. I'll try to see if I can implement this naive approach as a custom suggester script for personal use.