From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Alan Mackenzie Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Tentative diagnosis of TMM's problem. [Re: Enabling Transient Mark Mode by default] Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:05:36 +0000 Message-ID: <20080221080536.GA1891@muc.de> References: <200802171658.m1HGwQ4h011067@sallyv1.ics.uci.edu> <20080219085231.GA1032@muc.de> <200802190938.m1J9ccVg016565@sallyv1.ics.uci.edu> <20080219190127.GA1106@muc.de> <877ih0o9dx.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <20080220200142.GA1979@muc.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1203586852 10305 80.91.229.12 (21 Feb 2008 09:40:52 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2008 09:40:52 +0000 (UTC) Cc: rms@gnu.org, Sascha Wilde , lennart.borgman@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org, juri@jurta.org, dann@ics.uci.edu, storm@cua.dk, Miles Bader To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Feb 21 10:41:10 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1JS7vL-0007Om-Fi for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 10:41:03 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JS7uo-00031F-Nv for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:40:30 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JS7u6-0002ln-7B for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:39:46 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JS7u4-0002l3-Hc for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:39:45 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JS7u3-0002kh-1N for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:39:43 -0500 Original-Received: from colin.muc.de ([193.149.48.1] helo=mail.muc.de) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JS7u2-0007Z7-BE for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 04:39:42 -0500 Original-Received: (qmail 10632 invoked by uid 3782); 21 Feb 2008 07:52:59 -0000 Original-Received: from acm.muc.de (p57AF5CA9.dip.t-dialin.net [87.175.92.169]) by colin2.muc.de (tmda-ofmipd) with ESMTP; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 08:52:56 +0100 Original-Received: (qmail 2129 invoked by uid 1000); 21 Feb 2008 08:05:36 -0000 Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.5.9i X-Delivery-Agent: TMDA/1.1.5 (Fettercairn) X-Primary-Address: acm@muc.de X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: FreeBSD 4.6-4.9 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:89803 Archived-At: 'Morning, Stefan! On Wed, Feb 20, 2008 at 03:52:24PM -0500, Stefan Monnier wrote: > > And that problem is, what on earth do these two facets [modification > > of commands, and highlighting the region] of TMM have to do with > > eachother? > Keeping track of when the region is active and when it isn't can be > tricky, so without the visual feedback, you may get nasty surprises > where you end up, e.g., commenting a large part of your code instead > of inserting a harmless ";" at the end of the current line. > > Why should you have to "suffer" the visual effects of TMM, if you > > just want to use the "extended semantics", > You don't: you can change the `region' face so that it can't be seen. > > and why can you only highlight the region as a side effect of doing > > something else? > If you only want to visually highlight a piece of text, you can use > other packages that do that, like facemenu. Yes, of course there are workarounds, but that doesn't answer the point. ;-) Why is toggling the region highlighting not regarded as a command in its own right? Why can I not, in emacs -Q, highlight the region with (say) C-x r h? (Hey, that binding, still unused, could hardly be more appropriate. :-) > > I think that if we partitioned TMM into the command `highlight-region', > > and the other stuff, most of the acrimony on this thread would abate. > > highlight-region probably deserves its own key binding. > I don't think it's the right way to cut it. The main issue is with the > conflation of 2 concepts on the set/push-mark commands: one is to push > a buffer location on a ring for navigational purposes, the other is to > set the boundary of the region. Yes, "issue", but not "problem". This handling of THE mark is essential to Emacs, and I am convinced it is not coincidental. These 2 mark uses are not sharply distinct; I often want to go to places in the mark ring that were originally there for region operation; I often do M-> C-w to delete the last few lines of a buffer. Were there to be separate marks for these purposes, Emacs wouldn't be Emacs. > Stefan -- Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).