Feature request: make fallback options helm actions about helm-bibtex HOT 5 CLOSED

If no entry matches your query, you can’t select actions, but that’s precisely the situation for which fallback options were introduced. You can try it using the variant of helm-bibtex below which has no fallback options. Enter some string that doesn’t match any publication and try to access the actions menu.

(defun helm-bibtex1 ()
  "Search BibTeX entries."
  (interactive)
  (helm :sources '(helm-source-bibtex)
        :full-frame t
        :candidate-number-limit 500))

from helm-bibtex.

Yes, however I can select actions for a query with no matches in e.g. helm-find-files. I am not yet familiar enough with helm internals to know what's different in that implementation.

from helm-bibtex.

It works in some helm sources but not in others. For example in helm-for-files it doesn't work. Helm-find-file apparently displays a dummy entry when nothing else matches. But when we select the action "insert citation" on the dummy entry, what should happen then? Should this produce an error? I'm not really in favor of the dummy approach because it forces us to display actions for the dummy entry that we know are going to fail.

I see that it can be inconvenient to navigate to the fallback options but perhaps there is a better way to address that. Perhaps there is a keyboard shortcut that allows the user to directly jump to the next source? I wouldn't be surprised if Helm already had something like that.

from helm-bibtex.

helm-next-source is bound to C-o by default.

For helm-find-files, the actions themselves do all sorts of things on the dummy entry: fail silently, fail with an error message, or fail gracefully. So this probably isn't really a good idea, and the simplest thing for me to do would be to remove fallbacks I don't need.

from helm-bibtex.

helm-next-source is bound to C-o by default.

I didn't know this, thanks!

remove fallbacks I don't need.

Yes, that sounds like a good idea. Fallback options can be configured using the customization variable helm-bibtex-fallback-options.

from helm-bibtex.