Zsh-autocomplete: Option to not show results until N characters or Space input

[Dwight-D]

Typing one character results in a horrible list of suggestions that flashes briefly at the start of every command

It's a minor grievance, but this flash looks pretty ugly and is a little annoying. I strongly suspect no one types one character and then auto-completes anyway, unless they use some kind of auto-cd feature.

An option to disable suggestions until for instance two characters or space has been typed could stop this ugly suggestion flood.

It doesn't need to be very sophisticated and edge cases like type two characters -> erase one could just be ignored, it's mostly the initial flash at every command that annoys me.

[marlonrichert]

How about using the new “shorten the automatic completions list“ feature? Would that solve your problem?

[Dwight-D]

I guess almost but not quite. The thing is that I can't think of any situation where suggestions would be desirable after only typing one character, so you're always gonna have a huge list that pops up for a second and then disappears, since I'm always gonna keep typing after that.

There's no point to it being there at all, no matter the size of the list. I guess I can make it smaller but it's still gonna flash by for no reason every time I start typing a command which is just unpleasant UI/UX to me.

[marlonrichert]

OK, thanks for the explanation. I can add that.

[marlonrichert]

@Dwight-D @jcassee @PythonNut It's now available on the master branch. See the Readme for the syntax: https://github.com/marlonrichert/zsh-autocomplete/blob/master/README.md#wait-for-minimum-amount-of-input

[jcassee]

Thanks, @marlonrichert. I especially like how autocomplete does kick in after I type space, even when the minimum number of characters has not been reached.