When you use Helm for M-x, you can quickly check the documentation for an interactive command before calling it, it using the secondary key (usually C-z or C-j; I use the latter below). It brings up a background help buffer so you can be sure this is the command you want and you know how any arguments are used. Helm’s help line shows this: C-j: Describe this command (keeping session).
It’s a fantastic quality-of-life feature. Unfortunately, it only works for interactive commands; not for non-interactive functions or variables.
When you use describe-function (C-h f) or describe-variable (C-h v), this functionality goes away, replaced by nothing. (Literally: the Helm help line reads C-j: DoNothing (keeping session).)
I think I understand the motivation for this design: since you’re in the middle of running the interactive command to describe a function or variable, the alternate function also describing the function or variable seems redundant.
But in reality, when I’m doing Elisp coding, I frequently have used Helm to narrow down my choices of functions or variables to a manageable, but still significant number (say, eight or ten) and I’m not sure which one I want.
I’d like to press my secondary key on each to “preview” its documentation¹ before picking the one I want. But instead, my only avenue seems to be using RET to complete the describe command, then repeating the search with C-h f M-p and navigating to the next one, and so on. (If the thing I’m looking for is a buffer-local variable whose value I’m interested in, that requires even a few more keystrokes.)
If you have a number of choices and you really have no idea which one is right, it’s easy to lose track of your place (particularly after you’ve looked at a few) and repeat one you’ve already looked at—or inadvertently skip one—since you have to start at the top of the list again each time.
In Helm’s GitHub issues, there was a query about this, but the solution proposed—of simply assigning the describe function to the secondary key—results in an (interruptible) hang from infinite recursion.
So how can I achieve this?
¹ A “preview” sounds like I may want something different from what you get from the description—a synopsis (as you can get from interactives’ doc strings). But I just want to see the description in another buffer while keeping the Helm session open.
