bug#8189: 24.0.50; indenting region with TAB deactivates region

bug#8189: 24.0.50; indenting region with TAB deactivates region

[Gregor Zattler]

This is a wishlist bug, since it seems quite usefull if it was possible
to indent a region several times without the necessity to reactivate the
region:

 - Start Emacs (emacs -Q)
 - Set text-mode in the *scratch* buffer. (text-mode).
 - Select the first 3 lines.
 - Type <TAB>

What I was expecting:
 - The selected lines move to the next tab-stop.
 - The region remains active, so that I can repeat the indentation
   several times in a row.

What I see:
 - The indentation of the lines depends on emacs version
   (regression bug filed as bug #8187, see
    http://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=8187)
 - The region is deactivated.

This bug report is about deactivating the region.  I don't know if it's
easy to fix this but it would be nice if it would be possible to indent
the region several times by simply hitting TAB several times.

[Bug report stolen from:
   From: Dani Moncayo <dmoncayo@gmail.com>
   Date: Sat, 5 Mar 2011 00:17:46 +0100
   Message-ID: <AANLkTikY9vi0EQf-g3HyUv=0smRCj2nBwFsGoGB6y2an@mail.gmail.com>
   To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org
   Subject: Indenting paragraphs manually
]


Thanks for your attention, Gregor




In GNU Emacs 24.0.50.1 (i486-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.20.1)
 of 2011-02-25 on keller, modified by Debian
 (emacs-snapshot package, version 1:20110224-1)
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.10904000
configured using `configure  '--build' 'i486-linux-gnu' '--host' 'i486-linux-gnu' '--prefix=/usr' '--sharedstatedir=/var/lib' '--libexecdir=/usr/lib' '--localstatedir=/var' '--infodir=/usr/share/info' '--mandir=/usr/share/man' '--with-pop=yes' '--enable-locallisppath=/etc/emacs-snapshot:/etc/emacs:/usr/local/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp:/usr/local/share/emacs/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp:/usr/share/emacs/site-lisp' '--without-compress-info' '--with-x=yes' '--with-x-toolkit=gtk' '--with-imagemagick=yes' 'build_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'host_alias=i486-linux-gnu' 'CFLAGS=-DDEBIAN -DSITELOAD_PURESIZE_EXTRA=5000 -g -O2' 'LDFLAGS=-g -Wl,--as-needed' 'CPPFLAGS=''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: de_DE.utf8
  value of $LC_CTYPE: de_DE.utf8
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: POSIX
  value of $LC_MONETARY: de_DE.utf8
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: de_DE.utf8
  value of $LC_TIME: de_DE.utf8
  value of $LANG: de_DE.utf8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default enable-multibyte-characters: t

Major mode: Fundamental

Minor modes in effect:
  tooltip-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  blink-cursor-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  line-number-mode: t

Recent input:
C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k C-k 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> C-y <down> 
<down> <up> <delete> <delete> <delete> <delete> <right> 
<right> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <prior> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> 
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <prior> 
<prior> <prior> <prior> <prior> <prior> <prior> <down> 
<down> <down> <prior> <prior> <prior> <prior> <prior> 
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> 
<up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> 
<up> <up> <down> <left> <left> <left> <left> <right> 
<right> <backspace> <backspace> n e t <left> <left> 
<left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <left> <backspace> 
<backspace> <backspace> <backspace> t e l e g r a p 
h C-a C-k C-k C-y C-y <up> B c c : SPC <down> <down> 
<down> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> <up> 
<up> <up> <up> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> <down> 
<down> <down> <down> <down> C-c C-c y e s <return> 
M-x <up> <return>

Recent messages:
Mark set
byte-code: End of buffer [24 times]
scroll-down-command: Beginning of buffer [7 times]
byte-code: Beginning of buffer [4 times]
Mark set [2 times]
byte-code: Beginning of buffer [8 times]
Auto-saving...done
Sending...
Sending via mail...
Sending...done

Load-path shadows:
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/debian-startup hides /usr/share/emacs/site-lisp/debian-startup
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/hex-util hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/hex-util
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/sha1 hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/sha1
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/md4 hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/md4
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/sasl hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/net/sasl
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/hmac-md5 hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/net/hmac-md5
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/sasl-ntlm hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/net/sasl-ntlm
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/ntlm hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/net/ntlm
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/hmac-def hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/net/hmac-def
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/sasl-cram hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/net/sasl-cram
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/flim/sasl-digest hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/net/sasl-digest
/usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/site-lisp/emms/tq hides /usr/share/emacs/24.0.50/lisp/emacs-lisp/tq

Features:
(rect newcomment help-mode view shadow sort mail-extr message sendmail
regexp-opt rfc822 mml easymenu mml-sec mm-decode mm-bodies mm-encode
mail-parse rfc2231 rfc2047 rfc2045 ietf-drums mailabbrev mail-utils
gmm-utils mailheader emacsbug url-util url-parse auth-source eieio
byte-opt bytecomp byte-compile assoc gnus-util time-date password-cache
url-vars mm-util mail-prsvr cus-start cus-load tooltip ediff-hook
vc-hooks lisp-float-type mwheel x-win x-dnd tool-bar dnd fontset image
fringe lisp-mode register page menu-bar rfn-eshadow timer select
scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax facemenu font-core frame cham
georgian utf-8-lang misc-lang vietnamese tibetan thai tai-viet lao
korean japanese hebrew greek romanian slovak czech european ethiopic
indian cyrillic chinese case-table epa-hook jka-cmpr-hook help simple
abbrev loaddefs button minibuffer faces cus-face files text-properties
overlay md5 base64 format env code-pages mule custom widget
hashtable-print-readable backquote make-network-process dbusbind
dynamic-setting font-render-setting move-toolbar gtk x-toolkit x
multi-tty emacs)

bug#8189: 24.0.50; indenting region with TAB deactivates region

[Stefan Monnier]

> This bug report is about deactivating the region.  I don't know if it's
> easy to fix this but it would be nice if it would be possible to indent
> the region several times by simply hitting TAB several times.

The command usually bound to TAB is really meant for programming
languages, where it indents to "The Correct Indentation", so repeating
it makes no sense.

We could make it repeatable in text-mode buffers, but I suspect that
you'd also want to be able to "fine-tune" it or to un-indent in
a similar way, so maybe you want a more comprehensive solution.


        Stefan

bug#8189: 24.0.50; indenting region with TAB deactivates region

[Gregor Zattler]

Hi Stefan,
* Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> [06. Mar. 2011]:
>> This bug report is about deactivating the region.  I don't know if it's
>> easy to fix this but it would be nice if it would be possible to indent
>> the region several times by simply hitting TAB several times.
> 
> The command usually bound to TAB is really meant for programming
> languages, where it indents to "The Correct Indentation", so repeating
> it makes no sense.

I see.  I don't program but it's the same in org-mode.
 
> We could make it repeatable in text-mode buffers, but I suspect that
> you'd also want to be able to "fine-tune" it or to un-indent in
> a similar way, so maybe you want a more comprehensive solution.

If there is no spacial structure (programming, lists, outlines)
simply indenting as often as TAB is pressed seems very natural to
me. 


Thanks again, Gregor
-- 
 -... --- .-. . -.. ..--.. ...-.-

bug#8189: 24.0.50; indenting region with TAB deactivates region

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>> This bug report is about deactivating the region.  I don't know if it's
>> easy to fix this but it would be nice if it would be possible to indent
>> the region several times by simply hitting TAB several times.
>
> The command usually bound to TAB is really meant for programming
> languages, where it indents to "The Correct Indentation", so repeating
> it makes no sense.

And besides this -- in buffers where it does make sense, it's easy
enough to reactivate the region (with `C-x C-x C-x C-x' or the like) and
then TAB again.

So I don't think it's worth it to establish more functionality for
TAB/region things, and I'm closing this bug report.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no