Re: Shift selection using interactive spec

["Lennart Borgman (gmail)" <lennart.borgman@gmail.com>]

Chong Yidong wrote:
> The way I see it, C-SPC provides a robust region, and Emacs users will
> continue using this even after we implement shift-selection; holding
> down the shift key is too much of a nuisance.  So we're talking about
> how Emacs behaves for new/casual users, who use shift-selection
> because they're either unaware of or unused to C-SPC.  It seems to me
> that such users would expect the shift-selected region to be fleeting,
> since that is the behavior in other editors.  Furthermore,
> shift-selection is *inherently* fleeting, since entering any unshifted
> motion key deactivates the mark, and motion commands are
> psychologically "tinier" (or rather less consequential) than most
> commands.

I think that for those of us who are very used to shift-selection there 
must still be ways to avoid deactivating the mark with certain move 
commands. If for no other reason because keyboard looks quite different. 
  (For example, to type M-> I have to use the shift key. Though 
admittedly I have never used that one ...)

I would rather restrict dectivation to those keys that deactivates 
region in other applications. (Plus C-g etc of course.)

> I've been thinking about cases where you might want the shift-selected
> region to persist after a command.  The only good example I can find
> is M-x eval region, which doesn't deactivate the mark in tmm.  But
> even in this case, the advantage either way seems to be marginal.  If
> you care enough about keeping the mark active, why not use C-SPC in
> the first place?

Replacing things in various ways in a region seems like good candidates.

Maybe there should be a way to say "don't deactivate the mark after next 
command whatever it does"?

> Now, there is one other example, and that's switching windows.  You
> might argue that it's good to preserve a shift-selected region for
> this, so that it is still there when you return to the window.  But it
> seems to me that the effects of shift-selection and mouse selection
> ought to be as close to equivalent as we can make it (*), and
> preserving a shift-selected region when switching windows is
> counter-intuitive in the mouse selection context.

Wouldn't it be troublesome to keep the region when switching windows 
when the new window contains the same buffer with a different 
window-point? (Maybe at least a warning question in such cases?)