Re: Interactive hat.

[Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>]

> Yes, I hate this feature.  But rather than blinding me, this has opened
> my eyes to its problems, and I am thus motivated to root them out.  By
> contrast, those who like the feature will be blind to these problems.

The feature is a result of a long and painful process.  I have no
intention to go through it again.  I think the result is pretty clean,
so I'm not open to changing it, except for minor aspects.

> Anyhow, I've discovered that this problem is not new, and it's already
> been solved.  XEmacs put a "_" into their interactive string long ago,
> and there's a macro `defunx' in antlr-mode.el which, when used in place
> of `defun', strips out the "_" from an interactive string; OK, it does a
> few other things, too.

> How about adapting this macro and putting it into a special source file
> in .../lisp/, and making a discreet mention of it in "Using Interactive"
> in the elisp manual?  For example: "Note that using \"^\" will prevent
> your function running in older Emacs versions.  If you need this
> compatibility, consider using the macro `defunh' in the file
> lisp/compatibility.el.".

> I would far rather put the work in here and now than have to field
> complaints on bug-cc-mode in a year's time, asking why the CC Mode
> commands don't work with shift-select-mode.

> So, how about it?  This solution will leave interactive-hat, as it is
> currently implemented, untouched, and it will stop me moaning about it
> for ever.

What about my other suggestion to make it available to interactive
specs using a Lisp form rather than a string?  That would seem a lot
simpler and cleaner.

So, I've indeed done that, which incidentally simplifies the code.
Now inserting a "^" in the interactive string is just the same as
calling (handle-shift-selection), so you can write

  (interactive
   (progn (if (fboundp 'handle-shift-selection) (handle-shift-selection))
          ...blabla...))


-- Stefan