From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Bob Proulx Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: Re: Mark Date: Fri, 2 Jan 2015 17:15:34 -0700 Message-ID: <20150102170821311291879@bob.proulx.com> References: <54A6CD81.60109@opengroupware.ch> <54A71BA4.3010709@mousecar.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1420244160 16401 80.91.229.3 (3 Jan 2015 00:16:00 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2015 00:16:00 +0000 (UTC) To: Hugh Mayfield , help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sat Jan 03 01:15:55 2015 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([208.118.235.17]) by plane.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1Y7CNj-0004Xu-GS for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 03 Jan 2015 01:15:51 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:53085 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y7CNi-0001Dk-DU for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Fri, 02 Jan 2015 19:15:50 -0500 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:39556) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y7CNX-0001De-Da for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 02 Jan 2015 19:15:40 -0500 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y7CNT-0005lt-Vo for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 02 Jan 2015 19:15:39 -0500 Original-Received: from joseki.proulx.com ([216.17.153.58]:45829) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1Y7CNT-0005lp-Ng for help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 02 Jan 2015 19:15:35 -0500 Original-Received: from hysteria.proulx.com (hysteria.proulx.com [192.168.230.119]) by joseki.proulx.com (Postfix) with ESMTP id 8543321236; Fri, 2 Jan 2015 17:15:34 -0700 (MST) Original-Received: by hysteria.proulx.com (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 6A17B2DC35; Fri, 2 Jan 2015 17:15:34 -0700 (MST) Mail-Followup-To: Hugh Mayfield , help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <54A71BA4.3010709@mousecar.com> User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.23 (2014-03-12) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 3.x X-Received-From: 216.17.153.58 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:101843 Archived-At: ken wrote: > Hugh Mayfield wrote: > > Sorry for newbie question. After a while, Emacs starts behaving all the > > time as if I have typed C-SPC. That is, whenever I move point, the text > > between point and the previous location of point is highlighted. How do > > I disable this, please? Also, how did I invoke it, so I can avoid the > > same happening again? Various web searches and looking at the manual > > left me none the wiser. > > Yeah, that happens to me too. That "feature" came into emacs a few years > ago around the same time that some people wanted emacs to act more like > Windows. If there's a way to turn it off, I'd like to know too. All I can > say is, when you see it happening, do "C-g" to turn off the highlighting. > It can happen again. So you do "C-g" again. Ad infinitum. The problem as described by Hugh sounds different from what you say. What Hugh describes sounds like some type of mode breakage. What you describe sounds like transient-mark-mode. https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Mark.html > What's really bad is if you type a printable character when some area > (region) is highlighted (which you might miss if the region is offscreen or > if you're not constantly watching the screen). Then everything highlighted > will be replaced by that printable character. Apparently that's what you're > supposed to want to happen. Apparently #2, "C-w" is too much work if you > want to wipe out a block of text. Not liking that behavior I always disable transient-mark-mode with the following in my .emacs file. (setq transient-mark-mode nil) Hugh, Please confirm that it does or does not happen when using -Q and then when using -q. emacs -Q And then if it is okay check with: emacs -q That first disables all initialization. The second disables user initialization but allows system initialization. It is a way of debugging which emacs init files are causing what behavior to happen. If it happens with 'emacs' but not 'emacs -q' then it is something in your personal emacs init files. If it happens in 'emacs -q' but not in 'emacs -Q' then it is something in the system init files, probably due to a packaging error. If it is in 'emacs -Q' then it is in the core emacs somewhere and exists as a valid upstream bug. Bob