"visible" doesn't harmonize with "every instance"

[Enyium]

I have this VS Code buffer that's higher than my viewport.

defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abc
abc
abc
abc
abc
abc
abc
abc
abc
abc
abc
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defghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
abc
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abc

• When I say "highlight every instance [a-word]", def... isn't hightlighted, but only abc in the whole buffer.
• When I say "highlight visible every instance [a-word]" or "highlight every instance visible [a-word]", simply all lines in the viewport are highlighted including every def..., which is unwanted. (Other placements of "visible" don't work. "from visible..." as stated in Added visible modifier #2094 also not.) It behaves just like "highlight visible" does. So, is there support lacking, is it a bug, or am I doing it incorrectly?

Also, the description of "visible" in the cheat sheet is a bit sparse: Just "Visible". "viewport" could be mentioned, and that partially cut-off lines (even a tiny bit) are also excluded.

[AndreasArvidsson]

The pipeline is runs from right to left. That means that you first do every instance abc. This will return multiple targets and on each of those you've run the visible modifier. Visible is just defined as the visible ranges in the editor.
"from visible highlight every instance abc" is probably what you want?

It's not just the viewport though since folded regions are excluded. That's why we call it visible. It's the visible ranges.

[Enyium]

"from visible highlight every instance abc" is probably what you want?

No, as I stated, this doesn't work. Talon shows the subtitle (which shows what its speech recognition engine understood) "trot visible highlight every instance abc", although I definitely spoke very clearly and not too fast, which, in turn, first writes visible into the buffer and then hightlights every instance of abc in the whole buffer, including outside the viewport.

The pipeline is runs from right to left.

And the elements generally have an "of"-relationship between them, right (in the order articulated)? From right to left, this means a possessive genitive relationship: "the car of Peter" has the same meaning as "Peter's car", just with a different order of "Peter" and "car".

My thoughts as a newcomer:

• "highlight every instance visible abc" could be explained as "highlight every instance [of] [what's] visible [of] abc".
  • abc in the first stage exists only once, to filtering it by visibility isn't leading us to our goal. It's understandable that this doesn't work.
• "highlight visible every instance abc" could be explained as "highlight [what's] visible [of] every instance [of] abc".
  • The single abc from the first stage is multiplied to a reference to every conforming token sequence in the second stage. Filtering all of these occurrences by those that are visible in the third stage is exactly what's logically bringing us to our goal. In the fourth stage, these filtered occurrences should be highlighted.

[AndreasArvidsson]

No, as I stated, this doesn't work. Talon shows the subtitle (which shows what its speech recognition engine understood) "trot visible highlight every instance abc", although I definitely spoke very clearly and not too fast, which, in turn, first writes visible into the buffer and then hightlights every instance of abc in the whole buffer, including outside the viewport.

Sounds like you haven't activated from. By default it's not active.
https://www.cursorless.org/docs/#experimental-from

And the elements generally have an "of"-relationship between them, right (in the order articulated)? From right to left, this means a possessive genitive relationship: "the car of Peter" has the same meaning as "Peter's car", just with a different order of "Peter" and "car".

My thoughts as a newcomer:

* "highlight every instance visible abc" could be explained as "highlight every instance [of] [what's] visible [of] abc".
  
  * `abc` in the first stage exists only once, to filtering it by visibility isn't leading us to our goal. It's understandable that this doesn't work.

* "highlight visible every instance abc" could be explained as "highlight [what's] visible [of] every instance [of] abc".
  
  * The single `abc` from the first stage is multiplied to a reference to every conforming token sequence in the second stage. Filtering all of these occurrences by those that are visible in the third stage is exactly what's logically bringing us to our goal. In the fourth stage, these filtered occurrences should be highlighted.

The way Cursorless works is that we have a list of different actions, modifiers, marks etc. The Talon grammar specifies how you can compose these. You can have one action, one mark and multiple modifies.
highlight visible every instance abc breaks down into:
highlight: action
visible: modifier
every instance: modifier
abc: mark

Then this pipeline is run from right to left. ie starting at abc, expanding to every instance of that, converting each of those to visible ranges, and finally highlighting the result.

That you can compose multiple modifiers like this is at the core of Cursorless. The order of modifiers matters and will effect the outcome.

Note that we have modifiers that behave like filters. empty and content, but visible is not a filter modifier.

[Enyium]

Sounds like you haven't activated from. By default it's not active.
https://www.cursorless.org/docs/#experimental-from

Now it works. Thank you!

but visible is not a filter modifier.

But what it exactly is isn't explained anywhere I could see. The cheat sheet only says "Visible" and categorizes it under "Modifiers". And https://www.cursorless.org/docs/ doesn't contain a mention of it.

[AndreasArvidsson]

We should definitely add that to the docs. I have created an issue for that.
#2869