Re: Speed of keyboard macro execution?

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

John Wiegley <jwiegley@gmail.com> writes:

>>>>>> Perry E Metzger <perry@piermont.com> writes:
>
>> On Thu, 10 Dec 2015 22:00:05 +0200 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>>> > From: David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>
>>> > So I think it would make excellent sense to disable visual
>>> > positioning modes while recording and replaying keyboard macros.
>>> 
>>> No, I think you are wrong.  Think C-n and C-p again.
>
> Recording a macro has the value that it does what the user would have
> done, just automated. If you disable visual positioning, then in many
> cases it no longer does what I would have done manually.

Visual positioning makes no sense without visual feedback.  Can you show
a single example of a task to be done by a keyboard macro where visual
positioning would _help_ achieve that task rather than sabotage it?

Just one?  For your argument's sake?  I certainly get the ugliness of
changing a setting during macro record/replay.  No question about that.
But the alternative is keyboard macros being essentially useless because
their effects on the text become unpredictable.

Yes, they are then perfectly equivalent to pressing the same keys
outside of macro recording/replay, but since the pressing of the keys is
done based on visual feedback, there is just no point in recording key
presses during visual movement mode and replay them at some other buffer
position, or even the same buffer position but with different visuals.

In this case, I prefer "wrong" to "useless".

-- 
David Kastrup