[REQUEST] Cancel completion and remove what was inserted

[Supreeeme]

Feature

If I choose a completion candidate but then decide I don't want to use it, I have to exit insert mode and delete whatever was inserted. It would be nice if I was able to hit some key to cancel the insertion and then delete whatever it inserted, if anything.

Usecase

No response

[Screwtapello]

The "cycle through completion candidates" keys (<c-n> and <c-p> by default) also cycle through the "no completion selected" state. So if you show the completion menu and press <c-n> to select the first completion, you can press <c-p> to go back to "no completion selected".

Alternatively, the InsertCompletionHide hook receives the list of inserted text ranges; you could create a custom "dismiss completions" mapping that adds a one-shot hook to delete the inserted text, then executes <c-o> to hide the completion menu.

[krobelus]

On Tue, Jan 21, 2025 at 07:45:11PM -0800, Screwtapello wrote: The "cycle through completion candidates" keys (`<c-n>` and `<c-p>` by default) also cycle through the "no completion selected" state. So if you show the completion menu and press `<c-n>` to select the first completion, you can press `<c-p>` to go back to "no completion selected". Alternatively, the `InsertCompletionHide` hook receives the list of inserted text ranges; you could create a custom "dismiss completions" mapping that adds a one-shot hook to delete the inserted text, then executes `<c-o>` to hide the completion menu.

Something like hook global InsertCompletionHide .+ %{ exec <a-d> } definitely works (it will delete all accepted completions). You could make that deletion conditional on the `<esc>` key being pressed or similar.

[Supreeeme]

That hook does not do anything for me. The main issue is I'm not sure how I would go about remove exactly what was inserted.

[krobelus]

That hook does not do anything for me. The main issue is I'm not sure how I would go about remove exactly what was inserted.

yeah I forgot to select the inserted range.

Below is a tested implementation that removes
the inserted completion when you press .

It seems to work fine; but messing with this kind of stuff could be a rabbit
hole; other UI changes might be necessary to make the completion experience
consistent again (I guess that's obvious from the other questions you raised).
Kakoune is very flexible, you'll want to read :doc hooks and others.

# N.B. the "foo" grouping is only needed for iterating on this
remove-hooks global foo
define-command -override my-cancel-completion %{
    # .+ matches only non-empty hook parameters, which indicate that
    # some completion candidate was accepted.
    hook -group foo -once global InsertCompletionHide .+ %{
        select %val{hook_param}
        exec -draft <a-d>
    }
    execute-keys -with-hooks <esc>
}
hook -group foo global InsertCompletionShow .* %{
    map window insert <esc> <a-semicolon>:my-cancel-completion<ret>
}
hook -group foo global InsertCompletionHide .* %{
    unmap window insert <esc> <a-semicolon>:my-cancel-completion<ret>
}