Mark

Mark

[Hugh Mayfield]

Hi all

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.

Regards,

Hugh
-- 
Hugh Mayfield
mayfield.motd.org

Re: Mark

[ken]

On 01/02/2015 11:55 AM, Hugh Mayfield wrote:
> Hi all
>
> 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.
>
> Regards,
>
> Hugh
>

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.

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.

Re: Mark

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 01/03/2015 12:28 AM, ken wrote:
> 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.

Both of you, please:

If you still see it happening in the latest Emacs release, and if you 
can provide a recipe to reproduce it starting with 'emacs -Q', please 
file a bug.

M-x report-emacs-bug, and fill in the details.

Cheers,
Dmitry.

Re: Mark

[Hugh Mayfield]

On 02/01/15 22:33, Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> On 01/03/2015 12:28 AM, ken wrote:
>> 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.

Glad I'm not the only one / being dense.

> 
> Both of you, please:
> 
> If you still see it happening in the latest Emacs release, and if you
> can provide a recipe to reproduce it starting with 'emacs -Q', please
> file a bug.
> 
> M-x report-emacs-bug, and fill in the details.

Will investigate latest releases etc and report back.

> 
> Cheers,
> Dmitry.

-- 
Hugh Mayfield
mayfield.motd.org

Re: Mark

[ken]

On 01/02/2015 05:33 PM, Dmitry Gutov wrote:
> On 01/03/2015 12:28 AM, ken wrote:
>> 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.
>
> Both of you, please:
>
> If you still see it happening in the latest Emacs release, and if you
> can provide a recipe to reproduce it starting with 'emacs -Q', please
> file a bug.
>
> M-x report-emacs-bug, and fill in the details.
>
> Cheers,
> Dmitry.

Dmitry,

Are you saying that this "feature" has been rescinded in the latest 
version?  If so, is the "new" behavior back to the way it was ten years ago?

Re: Mark

[Dmitry Gutov]

On 01/03/2015 01:32 AM, ken wrote:

> Are you saying that this "feature" has been rescinded in the latest
> version?  If so, is the "new" behavior back to the way it was ten years
> ago?

The general behavior is not a "feature", it's a feature.

Suddenly "behaving all the time as if I have typed C-SPC", however, 
should be considered a bug.

Re: Mark

[Bob Proulx]

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

Re: Mark

[H. Dieter Wilhelm]

Hugh Mayfield <hugh.mayfield@opengroupware.ch> writes:

> Hi all
>
> 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'm not sure this will help, but still: This behaviour happens to me
only when I (accidentally) hit the <caps-lock> key...

             Dieter

-- 
Best wishes
H. Dieter Wilhelm
Darmstadt, Germany

Re: Mark

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm)
> Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:27:15 +0100
> 
> > 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'm not sure this will help, but still: This behaviour happens to me
> only when I (accidentally) hit the <caps-lock> key...

In "emacs -Q"?

Re: Mark

[Charles Millar]

On 01/03/2015 01:57 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm)
>> Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:27:15 +0100
>>
>>> 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'm not sure this will help, but still: This behaviour happens to me
>> only when I (accidentally) hit the <caps-lock> key...
> In "emacs -Q"?
>
>
I noticed this same behavior within the past two or three weeks, i.e. if 
I accidentally hit caps-lock, Emacs behaves as if I typed C-Spc.

I ran emacs -Q in a terminal and same behavior.

Emacs version 24.4.1 (i586-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ version 3.14.5) of 
2014-12-19 on brahms, modified by Debian.
Debian version - jessie

Charles Millar

Re: Mark

[H. Dieter Wilhelm]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

>> From: dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm)
>> Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:27:15 +0100
>> 
>> > 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'm not sure this will help, but still: This behaviour happens to me
>> only when I (accidentally) hit the <caps-lock> key...
>
> In "emacs -Q"?

No, I just tried to guess the user's problem...

    Dieter


-- 
Best wishes
H. Dieter Wilhelm
Darmstadt, Germany

Re: Mark

[Hugh Mayfield]

On 03/01/15 20:15, Charles Millar wrote:
> 
> On 01/03/2015 01:57 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>> From: dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm)
>>> Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:27:15 +0100
>>>
>>>> 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'm not sure this will help, but still: This behaviour happens to me
>>> only when I (accidentally) hit the <caps-lock> key...
>> In "emacs -Q"?
>>
>>
> I noticed this same behavior within the past two or three weeks, i.e. if
> I accidentally hit caps-lock, Emacs behaves as if I typed C-Spc.

There might be something in that.  I was writing LMC assembler, so had
caps lock on a lot of the time.  Will experiment.

> 
> I ran emacs -Q in a terminal and same behavior.
> 
> Emacs version 24.4.1 (i586-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ version 3.14.5) of
> 2014-12-19 on brahms, modified by Debian.
> Debian version - jessie
> 
> Charles Millar
> 

-- 
Hugh Mayfield
mayfield.motd.org
Document Freedom Day - Liberate your documents
http://documentfreedom.org/ - 25 March 2015

Re: Mark

[Hugh Mayfield]

On 04/01/15 10:34, Hugh Mayfield wrote:
> 
> 
> On 03/01/15 20:15, Charles Millar wrote:
>>
>> On 01/03/2015 01:57 PM, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>>>> From: dieter@duenenhof-wilhelm.de (H. Dieter Wilhelm)
>>>> Date: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 19:27:15 +0100
>>>>
>>>>> 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'm not sure this will help, but still: This behaviour happens to me
>>>> only when I (accidentally) hit the <caps-lock> key...
>>> In "emacs -Q"?
>>>
>>>
>> I noticed this same behavior within the past two or three weeks, i.e. if
>> I accidentally hit caps-lock, Emacs behaves as if I typed C-Spc.
> 
> There might be something in that.  I was writing LMC assembler, so had
> caps lock on a lot of the time.  Will experiment.

Turning off CAPS LOCK does indeed seem to be the answer.  I wonder why
that should be the case, though?

> 
>>
>> I ran emacs -Q in a terminal and same behavior.
>>
>> Emacs version 24.4.1 (i586-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ version 3.14.5) of
>> 2014-12-19 on brahms, modified by Debian.
>> Debian version - jessie
>>
>> Charles Millar
>>
> 

-- 
Hugh Mayfield
mayfield.motd.org
Document Freedom Day - Liberate your documents
http://documentfreedom.org/ - 25 March 2015

Re: Mark

[Yuri Khan]

On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:21 PM, Hugh Mayfield
<hugh.mayfield@opengroupware.ch> 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.

> Turning off CAPS LOCK does indeed seem to be the answer.  I wonder why
> that should be the case, though?

Because Caps Lock is very similar to holding down Shift, and holding
down Shift while moving point is a CUA gesture for extending the
region.

I posted about another instance of the same problem a year ago[1]. At
that time, I was pointed at “caps-mode.el”, which emulates the Caps
Lock functionality but only within “self-insert-command”; key bindings
remain unaffected.

[1]: http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/help-gnu-emacs/2014-01/msg00286.html


I have not filed a bug because fixing it would mean a tremendous
breakage of backward compatibility. (Firstly, Emacs would need to know
about physical key codes, modifier bits, and, independently, about
characters which are produced by these keys with these modifiers under
the currently active keyboard layout or input method — which is a big
change in the codebase. Secondly, a careless implementation based only
on physical key codes would break non-QWERTY layouts such as Dvorak
and Colemak. Thirdly, multilingual and multi-layout users’ needs would
have to be considered.)

Re: Mark

[Charles Millar]

On 01/11/2015 12:22 PM, Yuri Khan wrote:
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:21 PM, Hugh Mayfield
> <hugh.mayfield@opengroupware.ch> 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.
>> Turning off CAPS LOCK does indeed seem to be the answer.  I wonder why
>> that should be the case, though?
> Because Caps Lock is very similar to holding down Shift, and holding
> down Shift while moving point is a CUA gesture for extending the
> region.
I do not enable cua mode so should this possible or expected?

Re: Mark

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 00:22:02 +0700
> From: Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>
> Cc: "help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:21 PM, Hugh Mayfield
> <hugh.mayfield@opengroupware.ch> 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.
> 
> > Turning off CAPS LOCK does indeed seem to be the answer.  I wonder why
> > that should be the case, though?
> 
> Because Caps Lock is very similar to holding down Shift, and holding
> down Shift while moving point is a CUA gesture for extending the
> region.

CapsLock is not supposed to affect cursor and arrow keys, only
characters you insert.  That's what happens on my system, FWIW.  So
there's some other factor at work here on the OP's machine.

Re: Mark

[Yuri Khan]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 1:38 AM, Charles Millar <millarc@verizon.net> wrote:

> I do not enable cua mode so should this possible or expected?

Apparently, Shift+arrows are independent of cua-mode. When I run emacs
-Q, Shift+arrows and Shift+Ctrl+[bfpn] do extend the region.

As far as I understand, cua-mode only manages C-z C-x C-c C-v bindings
(and ensures they remain compatible with the use of C-x and C-c as
prefix keys).

Re: Mark

[Yuri Khan]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 2:02 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

>> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:21 PM, Hugh Mayfield
>> <hugh.mayfield@opengroupware.ch> 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.
>>
>> Because Caps Lock is very similar to holding down Shift, and holding
>> down Shift while moving point is a CUA gesture for extending the
>> region.
>
> CapsLock is not supposed to affect cursor and arrow keys, only
> characters you insert.

Right, but Hugh did not indicate he is using arrow keys specifically.
With the famous Emacs supposedly-more-ergonomic-than-arrows point
movement command bindings C-n, C-p, C-b, C-f, C-a, C-e and others of
this kind, I can reproduce the problem as described, on an
uncustomized GTK+ Emacs on X/GNU/Linux.

Re: Mark

[Charles Millar]

On 01/12/2015 01:20 AM, Yuri Khan wrote:
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 2:02 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>
>>> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:21 PM, Hugh Mayfield
>>> <hugh.mayfield@opengroupware.ch> 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.
>>> Because Caps Lock is very similar to holding down Shift, and holding
>>> down Shift while moving point is a CUA gesture for extending the
>>> region.
>> CapsLock is not supposed to affect cursor and arrow keys, only
>> characters you insert.
> Right, but Hugh did not indicate he is using arrow keys specifically.
> With the famous Emacs supposedly-more-ergonomic-than-arrows point
> movement command bindings C-n, C-p, C-b, C-f, C-a, C-e and others of
> this kind, I can reproduce the problem as described, on an
> uncustomized GTK+ Emacs on X/GNU/Linux.
>
>
I have (setq transient-mark-mode nil) in my .emacs; I do not use the 
arrow keys, rather C-p, C-n, etc. (for the "total emacs experience"). If 
my caps lock key is on I experience the same behavior as Hugh.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, as I recall I first noticed this 
in December (if this occur much earlier I was not paying attention) and 
my set up is

GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (i586-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.14.5) of 2014-12-19 
on brahms, modified by Debian
version jessie

Re: Mark

[Charles Millar]

On 01/12/2015 08:16 AM, Charles Millar wrote:
>
> On 01/12/2015 01:20 AM, Yuri Khan wrote:
>> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 2:02 AM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
>>
>>>> On Sun, Jan 11, 2015 at 10:21 PM, Hugh Mayfield
>>>> <hugh.mayfield@opengroupware.ch> 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.
>>>> Because Caps Lock is very similar to holding down Shift, and holding
>>>> down Shift while moving point is a CUA gesture for extending the
>>>> region.
>>> CapsLock is not supposed to affect cursor and arrow keys, only
>>> characters you insert.
>> Right, but Hugh did not indicate he is using arrow keys specifically.
>> With the famous Emacs supposedly-more-ergonomic-than-arrows point
>> movement command bindings C-n, C-p, C-b, C-f, C-a, C-e and others of
>> this kind, I can reproduce the problem as described, on an
>> uncustomized GTK+ Emacs on X/GNU/Linux.
>>
>>
> I have (setq transient-mark-mode nil) in my .emacs; I do not use the 
> arrow keys, rather C-p, C-n, etc. (for the "total emacs experience"). 
> If my caps lock key is on I experience the same behavior as Hugh.
>
> As I mentioned earlier in this thread, as I recall I first noticed 
> this in December (if this occur much earlier I was not paying 
> attention) and my set up is
>
> GNU Emacs 24.4.1 (i586-pc-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.14.5) of 
> 2014-12-19 on brahms, modified by Debian
> version jessie
>
Forgot to mention that I opened emacs -Q in a terminal; and the same 
behavior whether transient-mode-mark is set to nil or to t.

Re: Mark

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 13:20:30 +0700
> From: Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>
> Cc: "help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> > CapsLock is not supposed to affect cursor and arrow keys, only
> > characters you insert.
> 
> Right, but Hugh did not indicate he is using arrow keys specifically.
> With the famous Emacs supposedly-more-ergonomic-than-arrows point
> movement command bindings C-n, C-p, C-b, C-f, C-a, C-e and others of
> this kind, I can reproduce the problem as described, on an
> uncustomized GTK+ Emacs on X/GNU/Linux.

Then perhaps it's GTK-specific.

Re: Mark

[Yuri Khan]

On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 10:08 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:

> Then perhaps it's GTK-specific.

The offending code is in xterm.c (see my last year’s thread), so I
would expect it to be X-specific. What environment are you not
experiencing the problem on?

Re: Mark

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 12 Jan 2015 23:18:34 +0700
> From: Yuri Khan <yuri.v.khan@gmail.com>
> Cc: "help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org" <help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>
> 
> On Mon, Jan 12, 2015 at 10:08 PM, Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 
> > Then perhaps it's GTK-specific.
> 
> The offending code is in xterm.c (see my last year’s thread), so I
> would expect it to be X-specific. What environment are you not
> experiencing the problem on?

Windows.