how does zsh-autocomplete limit zsh completion initial listing ?

[lafleurdeboum]

In this SO question, I'm looking for ways to force zsh's initial listing on ambiguous completion. Just like if I replaced the first tab completion's pager by a call to head.

I tried zsh-autocomplete and it does that very nicely ! It's just that I'm not interested in a complete-as-you-type system, I'd rather update my own zshrc to implement that feature.

So the question is - how does zsh-autocomplete manage to do that ? @marlonrichert you mentioned a subprocess that trims the completions to fit onto the screen. If you (or anyone else) would care to give some details on that process, I'd be very grateful.

What I can't figure at the moment is how that subprocess triggers a completion and reads the results. I tried reading through the code, but apparently was quickly mistaken.

[marlonrichert]

It happens in the function .autocomplete.async.compadd and it's actually quite complex. Let me know if you have any about any lines there in particular. I can add more comments to the code. 🙂