Recall previous pages in viewport-edit-mode

[Rutherther]

Sometimes I would like to recall the previous answer when in a viewport mode, when I am directly replying to something that has been said last time. Sometimes I even cancel when I see the LLM is doing something wrong and want to react to that. Sometimes I manage to remember it fully, but sometimes I seem to forget some of the details I wanted to mention in my reply, especially if it's longer. So I am there, in the edit buffer and it seems the only way to go to the previous message is switching to the shell. Am I just missing something here?

This doesn't seem so good to me. I would like to be able to switch to the previous answer in the viewport instead. So what I am proposing here is that you could switch from edit mode to view mode and back. When you call agent-shell-viewport-previous-page, I would say it should remember what you wrote and get you back to the view mode. Then you can again reply, at least with the agent-shell-viewport-reply function, but maybe even better if you could just go to the next page and that one would be the edit page again. With the text you wrote already.

WDYT?

Checklist

• I've read the README's Issues section.
• I'm running the latest agent-shell version.
• I'm running the latest agent version (ie. Claude Code, Geminig CLI).
• I'm running the latest agent ACP package (ie. claude-code-acp).
• For requesting new agent support, I'm including a link to the ACP-capable agent or related ACP package.
• For issues, I'm including ACP traffic (as per README).

[xenodium]

Thanks for filing this.

I've run into this myself. As a workaround, I either save compose (edit) buffer content to the kill ring and exit out of editing via C-c C-k or as you found M-x agent-shell-other-buffer. Neither are great.

When you call agent-shell-viewport-previous-page

May be worth considering a separate command that's only used by the edit mode to add the extra logic, but then delegate to agent-shell-viewport-previous-page, with possibly C-c C-b to go back to page (default binding in view mode is just b).

I would say it should remember what you wrote and get you back to the view mode.

Yep. You may also need to remember the point location to make it feel more integrated when user goes back to editing.

Then you can again reply, at least with the agent-shell-viewport-reply function, but maybe even better if you could just go to the next page and that one would be the edit page again. With the text you wrote already.

I'd say make it work with both to be more forgiving to the user.

I should mention this all sounds great in principle. The resulting compose/viewport experience we have today is the output of trying different things that sounded good in principle but discarding quite a few that didn't work out in practice. Also worth weighting in additional complexity to the codebase (which will have to be maintained).

If I haven't put you off a PR, please send ;)

[Rutherther]

Another case I've noticed is when I submit to the agent, when I try to go to previous page it gives me that it's busy. That might be something to solve at the same time as this issue.

If I haven't put you off a PR, please send ;)

I will but only after some time, I have other stuff to focus on. I should be back in a week or so.

[xenodium]

Another case I've noticed is when I submit to the agent, when I try to go to previous page it gives me that it's busy. That might be something to solve at the same time as this issue.

This one's a safety measure for the time being. Without it, we lose the incoming/streamed text (currently only saved in the buffer). It would also corrupt the previous pages with the streamed text.

I will but only after some time, I have other stuff to focus on. I should be back in a week or so.

No worries.

[Rutherther]

This one's a safety measure for the time being. Without it, we lose the incoming/streamed text (currently only saved in the buffer). It would also corrupt the previous pages with the streamed text.

Hm, that's a bit unfortunate.