How to pick directory (not file) in IDO mode, emacs-24

Question

IDO mode is awesome. It's essential to know the basic shortcuts, especially the escape hatch Ctrl-f (introduction-to-ido-mode/) which gets you out of ido-mode.

In dired, if I want to copy a file to a directory, I can't seem to use ido to pick the directory, not can I even use the current ido directory that I've navigated to. There should be some way to say "pick directory" or at least enable the ctrl-f option to use the current spot in IDO. Does anybody know how to do this? (yes, you can disable ido mode for dired, but that is not what I want to do).

Answer 1

You can use C-j, which is bound to (ido-select-text) and selects the buffer currently named by the prompt, which might be a directory as well.

Answer 2

You can use "C-d" in ido mode, minibuffer

Answer 3

An alternative is to enable

(setq ido-show-dot-for-dired t)

and then you can open directories by opening the . file which will always be the first entry for a directory that you descend into.