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In various situations, ne
needs to ask you to choose one string
from several (where “several” can mean a lot).
For this kind of event, the requester is issued. The requester
displays the strings in as many columns as possible and lets you move
with the cursor from one string to another. The strings can fill many
screens, which are handled as consecutive pages. Most navigation keys
work exactly as in normal editing. This is true even of custom key
bindings. Thus, for instance, you can page up and down through the
list with <Control>-P and <Control>-N (in the standard keyboard
configuration).
As with the input line (see The Input Line), you can confirm your
input with <Return> or escape the requester with <f1> or the
<Escape> key (or whatever has been bound to the Escape
command). Moreover, if you are selecting a file name there is a third
possibility: by escaping with the <Tab> key, the file or directory
name that the cursor is currently on will be copied on the input
line. This allows to choose an existing name and modify it.
A special feature is bound to alphabetic characters: they move you to the next entry starting with the letter you typed. The search is case insensitive, and it continues on to the first string after having passed the last one.
An example of a requester is the list of commands appearing when you use
the Help
command. Another example is the file requester that
ne
issues whenever a file operation is going to take place. In
this case, pressing <Return> while on a directory name will enter
the directory. Note also that, should the requester take too long to
appear, you can interrupt the directory scanning with
<Control>-\. However, the listing will likely be incomplete.
Note that there are two items that always appear in the file requester: ./ and ../. The first one represents the current directory and can be used to force a reread of the directory. The second one represents the parent directory and can be used to move up by one directory level.