How to put buffers named with an asterisk at the end of ido's selection list?

Question

with (ido-switch-buffer), when I type stuff, "*magit: stuff*" comes before Stuff.txt.

the sorting seems to be done by recency, rather than the buffer name. more generally, a custom sort function would be nice.

Answer 1

Here is what I use:

(require 'dash)
(require 's)

(add-hook 'ido-make-buffer-list-hook 'my/ido-stars-to-end)
(defun my/ido-stars-to-end ()
  "Put \"*starred*\" buffers at the end of the ido candidates list."
  (ido-to-end (--filter (s-starts-with-p "*" it)
                        ido-temp-list)))

EDIT: as mentioned in a comment, the code above will put all "starred" buffers at the end of the list, even the currently selected one if its name contains an asterisk. A slightly modified version avoiding that effect would be:

(require 'dash)
(require 's)

(add-hook 'ido-make-buffer-list-hook 'my/ido-stars-to-end)
(defun my/ido-stars-to-end ()
  "Put \"*starred*\" buffers at the end of the ido candidates list."
  (ido-to-end (--filter (and (s-starts-with-p "*" it)
                             (not (equal it (buffer-name))))
                        ido-temp-list)))

Answer 2

If you want just for ido locally and not across tramp listings, then try this function that was originally made for buffers with @ in names and I modified for * in names:

(defun ido-sort-on-stars-to-end ()
    (message ido-current-directory)
    (setq ido-temp-list
        (sort ido-temp-list
            (lambda (a b)
              if (not (or (char-equal (string-to-char a) ?*) (char-equal (string-to-char b) ?*)))
            (time-less-p
             (sixth (file-attributes (concat ido-current-directory b))
                    (sixth (file-attributes (concat ido-current-directory a)))))
             nil)))
                  (ido-to-end
                   (delq nil (mapcar
                              (lambda (x) (and (string-match-p "^\\.." x) x))
                              ido-temp-list))))