How can I add a section like in helm-find files to helm-mini

Question

How can I get a section to helm-mini which just behaves if I invoke helm-find-files?

Adding helm-source-files-in-current-dir does almost what I want, but doesn't allow me to navigate to subdirectories (it rather opens then a dired buffer). Adding helm-source-findutils doesn't seem to have an effect (at least there is not a section added).

Here is a minimal .emacs file to show what I tried:

;; -*-Emacs-Lisp-*-
;; -*- coding:utf-8 -*-

(require 'package)

(package-initialize)

(setq inhibit-splash-screen 1)

(require 'helm)  

(require 'recentf) 

(helm-mode 1)
(recentf-mode 1)


(setq helm-mini-default-sources '(
                  ;helm-source-findutils
                  helm-source-files-in-current-dir
                  helm-source-recentf
                  )) 

Answer 1

Full behavior of helm-find-files is coming from helm-source-find-files. However, this variable has a docstring that says: "Should not be used among other sources."

A couple of observations, from trying a few things and looking at helm-files.el:

• Adding helm-source-find-files to helm-mini-default-sources does produce the desired effect, with the following caveat:

• The helm-source-find-files variable is initially nil, and it gets initialised only after helm-find-files has been invoked already at least once.

Based on all that, my take is:

• You can make it work, by taking helm-source-find-files as a basis, but you will have to initialise it - meaning digging through helm-files.el and figuring how to do it, and keep it in proper order (syncing up with the current directory or thing at point etc.)

• And it may break in a future update of helm.

In short, no, unless you are prepared to do a fair bit of coding and then support it (or submit a pull request to helm.)