How to have multiple columns/have non-searchable entries · Discussion #2493 · em...

Nselm ***@***.***> writes:

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How can you do multiple columns in a helm source? For example, helm-mini shows file size,name, absolute path etc., all in different columns.

You can use a cons cell => (DISPLAY . REAL) where DISPLAY is the candidate displayed with columns, colors, whatever... and REAL the real value of the candidate e.g. a buffer in your example.

Here an example with numbers:

(helm :sources (helm-build-sync-source "helm test" :candidates '(("Un" . 1) ("Deux" . 2) ("Trois" . 3) ("Quatre" . 4) ("Cinq" . 5)) :action (lambda (_c) (let ((mkd (helm-marked-candidates))) (apply #'+ mkd)))) :buffer "*helm test*")

How can you show something, but not make it searchable.

There is several ways to do this.

1) Use a display property to display what you want to show. 2) Use the match-on-real attribute to match on the REAL part of candidate instead of DISPLAY. 3) Use the match-part attribute.

Perhaps others I have not in mind yet.

Say I have a special source for various user-defined commands, and I want to provide not only the name, but also a short description of it, or its keybindings etc, without including them in the filtering, like helm-M-x does.

Here an example with :match-part:

(helm :sources (helm-build-sync-source "helm test" :candidates '("deux un" "trois un" "un trois" "un deux") :match-part (lambda (candidate) (car (split-string candidate)))) :buffer "*helm test*")

If you type "un" only two candidates will be shown.

IIRC I used a display property to show bindings in helm-M-x.