Favour matches at word boundaries #695

ccjmne commented 2025年10月21日 15:10:57 +02:00

Pre-checks

• The fuzzel.ini
  and fuzzel man pages.

• Changelog
  of newer and unreleased features

Describe your feature request

Say that I have Microsoft Teams and Steam running, when I search for teams, I'd like Microsoft Teams to show up before I finish typing the 5th character (the s of teams, my input) that would unequivocally match the Microsoft Teams result instead of Steam.

I believe that prioritising matches at word boundaries would be appropriate.

Note that currently, setting the match-mode to fzf doesn't replicate that specific behaviour of the default fzf matching algorithm. Here's a shell snippet you can play with to see for yourself:

fuzzel --match-mode fzf --dmenu <<EOF
Steam
Microsoft Teams
EOF
fuzzel --match-mode fzf --dmenu <<EOF
Microsoft Teams
Steam
EOF

Do similar tools already implement this feature?

Yes, fzf and tofi do it by default.

Here's two quick copy-pastable excerpts to observe how either behaves:

fzf <<EOF
Steam
Microsoft Teams
EOF
fzf <<EOF
Microsoft Teams
Steam
EOF

tofi --fuzzy true <<EOF
Steam
Microsoft Teams
EOF
tofi --fuzzy true <<EOF
Microsoft Teams
Steam
EOF

Regardless of the order in which the two results are listed originally, merely typing "tea" will favour Microsoft Teams right away with both tools.

Well, technically, I only tested the beginning of words rather than both their ends, but I suppose this to be the more prominent use case.

### Pre-checks - [x] The [fuzzel.ini](https://codeberg.org/dnkl/fuzzel/src/branch/master/doc/fuzzel.ini.5.scd) and [fuzzel](https://codeberg.org/dnkl/fuzzel/src/branch/master/doc/fuzzel.1.scd) man pages. - [x] [Changelog](https://codeberg.org/dnkl/fuzzel/src/branch/master/CHANGELOG.md#unreleased) of newer and unreleased features ### Describe your feature request Say that I have `Microsoft Teams` and `Steam` running, when I search for `teams`, I'd like `Microsoft Teams` to show up before I finish typing the 5th character (the `s` of `teams`, my input) that would unequivocally match the `Microsoft Teams` result instead of `Steam`. **I believe that prioritising matches at word boundaries would be appropriate.** Note that currently, setting the `match-mode` to `fzf` doesn't replicate that specific behaviour of the default `fzf` matching algorithm. Here's a shell snippet you can play with to see for yourself: ```sh fuzzel --match-mode fzf --dmenu <<EOF Steam Microsoft Teams EOF fuzzel --match-mode fzf --dmenu <<EOF Microsoft Teams Steam EOF ``` ### Do similar tools already implement this feature? Yes, `fzf` and `tofi` do it by default. Here's two quick copy-pastable excerpts to observe how either behaves: ```sh fzf <<EOF Steam Microsoft Teams EOF fzf <<EOF Microsoft Teams Steam EOF ``` ```sh tofi --fuzzy true <<EOF Steam Microsoft Teams EOF tofi --fuzzy true <<EOF Microsoft Teams Steam EOF ``` Regardless of the order in which the two results are listed originally, merely typing "tea" will favour `Microsoft Teams` right away with both tools. Well, technically, I only tested the *beginning* of words rather than both their ends, but I suppose this to be the more prominent use case.

markstos commented 2025年10月26日 00:44:46 +02:00

I agree fzf's behavior is better here and have submitted a PR to align with it.

I agree fzf's behavior is better here and have submitted a PR to align with it.

ccjmne commented 2025年10月27日 18:22:04 +01:00

Fantastic, thank you very much, @markstos!

Fantastic, thank you very much, @markstos!