Re: visual-region-mode?

[hw <hw@adminart.net>]

charles@aurox.ch (Charles A. Roelli) writes:

>> From: hw <hw@adminart.net>
>> Date: Wed, 19 Sep 2018 22:04:14 +0200
>
> [...]
>> With t-m-m disabled, there is no way to fortify the region, and there is
>> no highlighting.  Why would I disable it?
>
> There would be a way to "fortify" the region, if you had another
> binding for toggling whether the region is active or not.

Without t-m-m, the region can not become active.

>> With t-m-m disabled, the region can not be activated, so why would I try
>> to do that?  My function is ignorant of t-m-m anyway.
>> 
>> Why would I disable t-m-m only to ask to temporarily enable it?
>
> That's how the current implementation is designed: the region is
> considered "active" when both "mark-active" is non-nil /and/ "t-m-m"
> is on.

That doesn't explain why I would disable t-m-m.

> [...]
> I'd like to be able to "activate" the region with "t-m-m" off to use
> commands that behave differently when the region is active (like M-%),
> without the highlighting that "t-m-m" forces,

Perhaps there is a way to disable the highlighting.  I haven't found out
how something is highlighted.

> and without the region randomly deactivating itself after certain
> commands as it does with "t-m-m" switched on.

I've never had an issue with the region deactivating itself randomly.
Under what circumstances exactly does this happen?

Are you referring to commands deactivating the region?  That could be
configurable, though I'm not sure how useful it is to indefinitely do
something with a region until it is explicitly deactivated.  What do you
plan on doing with it that would require this?

> Highlighting the region could be a separate mode.

Highlighting the region all the time is probably not very useful.

>> Are there any disadvantages of having t-m-m enabled that would overcome
>> all the advantages of having it disabled?
>
> Not sure I understand this.

Disabling t-m-m doesn't make any sense at all.  Why would anyone disable
it?

I can see it for someone who doesn't like the highlighting, so if it was
configurable --- and it is amazing that is isn't --- whether to
highlight the region when it's active or not, everyone who dislikes the
highlighting could have t-m-m enabled.  I would remove having it
disabled entirely from Emacs because there is no point in that and only
complication.

Without highlighting, a different indicator could be useful to show
whether the region is active or not, like a hint in the mode line.