Eli and I exchanged messages about this on the emacs-devel list and settled
on the outer save-excursion as you first wrote below since it is indeed the
original buffer whose point we want to save which may be manipulated by
some subroutine deep within the with-current-buffer that changes the buffer
back to the original.  Thanks as always for the pointers though.  -- Bob

On Mon, May 10, 2021 at 10:00 AM Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>
wrote:

> >       (save-excursion
> > -       (set-buffer (if (bufferp loc) loc (find-file-noselect loc)))
> > -       (when (ibut:to (ibut:key but-sym))
> > -         (let (buffer-read-only)
> > -           (if (< (point) start)
> > -               ;; Find beginning of button named label delimiter and
> delete
> > -               ;; from there.
> > -               (progn (goto-char (- (point) (length ibut:label-start)))
> > -                      (delete-region (point) end))
> > -             ;; No label, just delete delimited ibutton text.
> > -             (delete-region start end))
> > -           (when (looking-at "[ \t]*\r?\n")
> > -             (delete-region (point) (match-end 0)))
> > -           (run-hooks 'ibut-delete-hook))))
> > +       (with-current-buffer (if (bufferp loc) loc (find-file-noselect
> loc))
> > +         (when (ibut:to (ibut:key but-sym))
> > +           (let (buffer-read-only)
> > +             (if (< (point) start)
> > +                 ;; Find beginning of button named label delimiter and
> delete
> > +                 ;; from there.
> > +                 (progn (goto-char (- (point) (length
> ibut:label-start)))
> > +                        (delete-region (point) end))
> > +               ;; No label, just delete delimited ibutton text.
> > +               (delete-region start end))
> > +             (when (looking-at "[ \t]*\r?\n")
> > +               (delete-region (point) (match-end 0)))
> > +             (run-hooks 'ibut-delete-hook)))))
> >       but-sym))))
> >
> >  (defun    ibut:get (&optional lbl-key buffer key-src)
> > diff --git a/hui-window.el b/hui-window.el
> > index 654c035..796770e 100644
> > --- a/hui-window.el
> > +++ b/hui-window.el
> > @@ -311,12 +311,12 @@ part of InfoDock and not a part of Hyperbole)."
> >    "Return t iff there is a non-empty active region in buffer of the
> last Smart Mouse Key release."
> >    (when (setq hkey-value (if assist-flag assist-key-depress-prev-point
> action-key-depress-prev-point))
> >      (save-excursion
> > -      (set-buffer (marker-buffer hkey-value))
> > -      ;; Store and goto any prior value of point from the region
> > -      ;; prior to the Smart Key depress, so we can return to it later.
> > -      (and (goto-char hkey-value)
> > -        (hmouse-save-region)
> > -        t))))
> > +      (with-current-buffer (marker-buffer hkey-value)
> > +     ;; Store and goto any prior value of point from the region
> > +     ;; prior to the Smart Key depress, so we can return to it later.
> > +     (and (goto-char hkey-value)
> > +          (hmouse-save-region)
> > +          t)))))
>
> These two don't make much sense: `save-excursion` only saves the
> position of point in the current buffer, so
>
>     (save-excursion (with-current-buffer FOO ...))
>
> is useless in one of two ways:
> - FOO is already the current buffer, so `with-current-buffer`
>   (previously `set-buffer`) does nothing.
> - FOO is a different buffer, so the buffer-position saved&restored by
>   `save-excursion` is in a buffer that's not affected by `...`.
>
> If you want to combine the two, then you should use
>
>     (with-current-buffer FOO (save-excursion ...))
>
> Tho if we presume that the `set-buffer` in the previous code did do
> something useful (i.e. selected a different buffer), then there's a good
> chance that the `save-excursion` has never done its intended job and can
> be removed.
>
>
>         Stefan
>
>