Vertico with minibuffer at the bottom

[emlautarom1]

By default, Vertico has the prompt at the top, and candidates beneath it. This is not the standard way Emacs handles completions, where the prompt is always at the bottom of the screen, and completions appear on top of it (in a separate buffer, but that's besides the point).

What I would like to have is something like the following:

This is a WIP that Claude came up with to get the behavior that I want.

• Since the prompt is at the bottom, I can always quickly find it
• Completions appear from top to bottom, and navigation works as expected: the first candidate is at the top, and navigation with arrows follows naturally. This is particularly useful when doing search (ex. consult-line), where navigating to the next candidate (<down>) moves you in the same direction as they appear in the buffer.

[emlautarom1]

The following ended up doing the trick:

;; Vertico: vertical completion UI.
(use-package vertico
  :ensure t
  :init
  (vertico-mode t)
  :config
  ;; Render candidates *above* the prompt in standard order, keeping the
  ;; prompt/input at the bottom of the minibuffer.
  (cl-defmethod vertico--display-candidates (lines)
    (move-overlay vertico--candidates-ov (point-min) (point-min))
    (unless (eq vertico-resize t)          ; pad below to a fixed height (list hugs the top)
      (setq lines (nconc lines
			 (make-list (max 0 (- vertico-count (length lines))) "\n"))))
    (let ((string (apply #'concat lines)))
      (add-face-text-property 0 (length string) 'default 'append string)
      (overlay-put vertico--candidates-ov 'before-string string))
    (vertico--resize-window (length lines)))
  :custom
  (vertico-cycle t)     ; wrap around at the first/last candidate
  (vertico-count 12))   ; candidates shown above the prompt

It would be great though if this could be a built-in feature instead of a hack (requires redefining internals)

[emlautarom1]

I've updated the proposed solution for one that does not use dedicated side windows.

[MagielBruntink]

This is exactly what I was looking for as well, thank you!

Seconding the wish to have it optionally available within the package :-)

[minad]

Added two options in 5b6a8b6.

You can use it as follows:

(setq vertico-reverse-prompt t
      vertico-reverse-candidates nil)
(vertico-reverse-mode)

[minad]

What about vertico-reverse-mode?

[emlautarom1]

@minad vertico-reverse-mode is close, but not exactly what I want. Here I run consult-line:

Note that the first candidate selected is at the bottom and the order is reversed (as expected from the name). This means that to go to the "next" candidate I need to press <up> unlike other completions (you would expect to use <down>).

After pressing <up> I go to the next candidate in (reverse) order, while the consult preview in the buffer moves downward. This is the jarring behaviour that made me try to find an alternative solution.

[minad]

Yes, for consult-line the behavior is unexpected.