From: Alan Mackenzie <acm@muc.de>
To: Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>
Cc: md5i@md5i.com, dan.colascione@gmail.com, emacs-devel@gnu.org,
juri@jurta.org, monnier@iro.umontreal.ca, dmoncayo@gmail.com,
"Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@xemacs.org>,
yandros@mit.edu, drew.adams@oracle.com
Subject: Re: `isearch-allow-scroll' - a misnomer and a bad design
Date: Thu, 22 Sep 2011 10:35:06 +0000 [thread overview]
Message-ID: <20110922103506.GA3134@acm.acm> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <E1R6Tii-0000zy-Jw@fencepost.gnu.org>
Hi, Richard.
On Wed, Sep 21, 2011 at 04:48:40PM -0400, Richard Stallman wrote:
> Whether something is a mode is a question about how people understand
> its interface.
> Isearch is not supposed to be a mode. It is supposed to be a command
> which searches for the printing character string you type, and you can
> edit the search string in simple limited ways. Unrelated editing
> commands end searcch and do their normal editing.
> The only control characters that originally didn't exit the Isearch
> were C-r and C-s -- which are the commands to enter Isearch.
Yes. But such a "feature pure" Isearch wouldn't serve users' needs very
well, particularly in such a rich environment as Emacs.
> Then I added M-y, which was ok because M-y would always be an error if
> it exited an Isearch (since the previous command was not a yank).
Ah. _NOW_ I understand why `isearch-yank-kill' is on M-y. :-) (At
least, was on M-y.)
> But then people started making other commands special, destroying the
> clear simplicity. As a result of those, Isearch is now more complex
> and people start to think of it as a mode. Thus, they propose changes
> that make it more like a mode, and make it even more complex, and even
> less of a command that searches for the printing character string you
> type.
I use Isearching almost constantly, and expect most users do too. I'd
be unhappy and less productive if its many features (I think I use most
of them) were not there. In fact, I'd write them if they weren't. ;-)
> >From this point of view, the whole point of Alan's changes (and of
> Drew's suggestion as well) is to *reduce* the modality of isearch.
> With Alan's option *on*, scrolling commands now work as they do
> elsewhere in Emacs: the visible portion of the buffer at hand
> changes, without disturbing the state of the buffer or the search.
> I never noticed Alan's proposal, but now that I see what it is, I am
> against it.
With all due respect, what you said back in 2003 (on the 1st March) was:
"I have no objections to it if it is disabled by default.". Then, I
thought it should have been enabled by default. Now I see that it
shouldn't be.
> It is very common to use C-v to exit an Isearch. This change would be
> a painful surprise.
It would. That is why it needs an option setting for this to happen. I
think that, likewise, `isearch-allow-prefix' should be nil by default.
> The idea that being in a search is a state that commands "shouldn't
> disturb" is the result of thinking of it as a mode. It is normal
> for editing commands to stop searching and edit instead.
Is scrolling "editing" here? I would have said no, since it doesn't
change the buffer and doesn't move point.
> --
> Dr Richard Stallman
--
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).
next prev parent reply other threads:[~2011-09-22 10:35 UTC|newest]
Thread overview: 59+ messages / expand[flat|nested] mbox.gz Atom feed top
2011-09-09 20:38 `isearch-allow-scroll' - a misnomer and a bad design Drew Adams
2011-09-09 21:52 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-09 23:07 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-10 0:58 ` Stefan Monnier
2011-09-10 7:48 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-10 11:28 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-10 16:44 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-10 11:47 ` Juri Linkov
2011-09-10 12:13 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-10 2:03 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2011-09-10 11:10 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-10 16:43 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-10 19:04 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-10 20:22 ` PJ Weisberg
2011-09-10 23:06 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2011-09-11 0:47 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-11 10:39 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-11 16:54 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-11 17:30 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-11 18:53 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-12 2:46 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-12 9:36 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-13 1:39 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-13 14:27 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-13 20:05 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-13 21:04 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-13 22:52 ` Juri Linkov
2011-09-14 0:32 ` Daniel Colascione
2011-09-14 0:41 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-14 14:10 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-14 14:35 ` PJ Weisberg
2011-09-15 4:11 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-14 14:44 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-18 2:52 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-19 19:08 ` chad
2011-09-20 15:16 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-20 19:17 ` Michael Welsh Duggan
2011-09-20 19:59 ` Dani Moncayo
2011-09-21 1:22 ` Stefan Monnier
2011-09-21 14:51 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-21 15:01 ` Dani Moncayo
2011-09-21 15:10 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-21 16:35 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
[not found] ` <E1R6Tii-0000zy-Jw@f!! encepost.gnu.org>
2011-09-21 20:48 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-21 21:13 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-22 13:58 ` Richard Stallman
2011-10-08 21:13 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-22 5:33 ` Stephen J. Turnbull
2011-09-22 13:59 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-22 10:35 ` Alan Mackenzie [this message]
2011-09-22 21:44 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-22 22:23 ` PJ Weisberg
2011-09-23 12:30 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-21 9:04 ` Alan Mackenzie
2011-09-21 9:27 ` Dani Moncayo
2011-09-21 9:29 ` chad
2011-09-21 13:22 ` Drew Adams
2011-09-21 14:50 ` Richard Stallman
2011-09-12 14:59 ` Drew Adams
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