This is by far best feature in Emacs that you can use interactive search inside Minibuffer. If you want to find a function that you don’t know exact name, I do this a lot – who will remember function names in Emacs, you can use:
C-h f C-s
And search for functions. How cool is that? Almost all functions that have completion inside minibuffer work with search like
- C-x b C-s – search for buffer to switch
- C-h <KEY> C-s – search for help
When I switch to Emacs 24, I found that M-x C-s don’t work. So you can’t search for interactive function to execute. But you can get it back. As describe by this Emacs Bug Ticket by putting this to you .emacs file.
(defun read-extended-command ()
"Read command name to invoke in `execute-extended-command'."
(minibuffer-with-setup-hook
(lambda ()
(set (make-local-variable 'minibuffer-default-add-function)
(lambda ()
;; Get a command name at point in the original buffer
;; to propose it after M-n.
(let ((def (with-current-buffer
(window-buffer (minibuffer-selected-window))
(and (commandp (function-called-at-point))
(format "%S" (function-called-at-point)))))
(all (sort (minibuffer-default-add-completions)
(lambda (a b) (string< a b)))))
(if def
(cons def (delete def all))
all)))))
;; Read a string, completing from and restricting to the set of
;; all defined commands. Don't provide any initial input.
;; Save the command read on the extended-command history list.
(completing-read
(concat (cond
((eq current-prefix-arg '-) "- ")
((and (consp current-prefix-arg)
(eq (car current-prefix-arg) 4)) "C-u ")
((and (consp current-prefix-arg)
(integerp (car current-prefix-arg)))
(format "%d " (car current-prefix-arg)))
((integerp current-prefix-arg)
(format "%d " current-prefix-arg)))
;; This isn't strictly correct if `execute-extended-command'
;; is bound to anything else (e.g. [menu]).
;; It could use (key-description (this-single-command-keys)),
;; but actually a prompt other than "M-x" would be confusing,
;; because "M-x" is a well-known prompt to read a command
;; and it serves as a shorthand for "Extended command: ".
"M-x ")
obarray 'commandp t nil 'extended-command-history)))
And tell me, why you will ever need Ido-mode
One note about that, when you use one interactive function inside another one you will need to call C-g twice to exit minibuffer
