ctrlf minibuffer gets stuck

I recently started using ctrlf. Sometimes if the ctrlf minibuffer loses focus for some reason (does not just happen when I use my mouse), it will remain open and I cannot use C-s or C-r again until I manually click on the minibuffer to focus it. I would have expected C-s/C-r to focus an existing ctrlf minibuffer if it existed, but they do not, and I could not come up with a good way to implement this myself. Is there a good workaround for this? Alternatives to ctrlf?

> Alternatives to ctrlf? swiper-isearch (actually, it was a thing before ctrlf existed)

> will remain open and I cannot use C-s or C-r again until I manually click on the minibuffer to focus it. You probably don't need the mouse to go back to the minibuffer, good old `other-window` should work too. Also, you can close the minibuffer while you are away from it with `abort-recursive-edit` (bound by default to `C-]`). > Alternatives to ctrlf. The built-in isearch is pretty similar to ctrlf but has various improvements. 😛 Be sure to read the entire chapter `(info "(emacs)Incremental Search")` to see all the bells and whistles isearch has.

\> Alternatives to ctrlf? https://github.com/thierryvolpiatto/isearch-light

The next time this happens, check the lossage to see what keystrokes took you out of the minibuffer. At a (very rough) guess, there’s a keybinding that’s trying to be smart that’s tripping you up, and you can either unbind it or take advantage of it.

What about the issues with isearch that motivated the creation of ctrlf? Have they been fixed?

Issues are in the eye of the beholder. I doubt they are fixed but I also don't consider them issues myself and quite like isearch. For example, the ctrlf website says: > The main issue, for me, is that it feels extremely fragile. If you type any command that is not bound in Isearch, then you exit your search and run that command. That is something I love about isearch! You don't need to press RET to leave isearch, you just go on to the next thing.

>Issues are in the eye of the beholder. Very true.

Of alternatives, if all you want is a minibuffer for Isearch, there is [`isearch-mb`](https://github.com/astoff/isearch-mb).