Re: delete-selection-mode as default

[hw <hw@adminart.net>]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: hw <hw@adminart.net>
>> Date: Sun, 16 Sep 2018 15:48:10 +0200
>> Cc: spacibba@aol.com, joostkremers@fastmail.fm, npostavs@gmail.com,
>> 	emacs-devel@gnu.org, Yuri Khan <yurivkhan@gmail.com>, acm@muc.de,
>> 	Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>, phillip.lord@russet.org.uk
>> 
>> Emacs has point and (the end of) the region (selection) always entangled
>> with no way to separate them or to disable the region.  That is what I
>> dislike so much, and it causes all kinds of issues.
>
> It is also why it is so convenient to define the region without using
> the mouse.  With the current way of defining region, you just go to
> the other end, and you are immediately ready to invoke commands that
> operate on the region.  How do you do that if point is not on one of
> the edges of the region, except by dragging the mouse?

Commands limited to the selection can work with the selection without a
need to even have the selection displayed on screen.

If you want to start making a selection where the cursor currently is,
simply use the key binding to set a marker.  Otherwise, navigate to
where you want to set the marker first.  You can use a trackball or not,
it's unrelated.

To be able to go to the other end of the selection, you first have to
make one.  There is no going to "the other end" of a region before a
selection has been made, and once one has been made, there is no need to
do that in order to do something with the selection --- unless
operations supposed to do something with the selection don't do that
because they start working from where point is rather than from where
the start of the selection is.  Such operations may need to be fixed.

> [...]