Re: visual-region-mode?

[charles@aurox.ch (Charles A. Roelli)]

> From: hw <hw@adminart.net>
> Cc: Yuri Khan <yurivkhan@gmail.com>,  emacs-devel@gnu.org
> Date: Wed, 03 Oct 2018 15:13:25 +0200
>
> > The wording leaves something to be desired.  The parenthetical could
> > maybe say:
> >
> >   Emacs only pushes the mark if it was not already active; if the mark
> >   was active when you started the search, both 'C-u C-<SPC>' and 'C-x
> >   C-x' will place point at the other end of the active region, not at
> >   the original value of point.
> 
> This seems very confusing.  Is the region activated or the mark, or
> both?

I've used the two terms interchangeably because they are equivalent.

> Isn't the region defined to be the part of the buffer between mark and
> point?  If so, then point is always at one end of the region, active or
> not, and there is no way to place it somewhere else.  IIUC, you can not
> place point at the other end of the region when there is no mark to
> exchange it with, and what happens to the mark when you do this when
> searching incrementally?

Yes, you can place point at the other end of an active region (that
is, at mark).  Naturally the active region will change, if that's all
you do.

Neither C-u C-SPC nor C-x C-x change their behavior when searching
incrementally; but ISEARCH changes its behavior based on whether the
region is active, and that is what needs better documentation.  This
kind of oversight makes "t-m-m" unwieldy, harder to customize and
unlikely to be a target for patches or improvement.  "t-m-m" reaches
into many places in Emacs where you might not have expected, and
turning it off is a convenient fix that guarantees (almost) no bother
from the mode.