From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Drew Adams Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: RE: Why was `transient-mark-mode' turned off for `delete-selection-mode'? Date: Thu, 4 Sep 2014 20:01:41 -0700 (PDT) Message-ID: <53f0f206-96ae-423b-a237-294a26f60270@default> References: <60d75d3a-d04c-4394-800b-60b65fafdb11@default> <2ffbe01d-ef46-4467-83a6-4714a192ba8b@default> <3b045884-0f98-49f3-addd-227a3c1403d1@default> NNTP-Posting-Host: plane.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1409886146 5456 80.91.229.3 (5 Sep 2014 03:02:26 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 5 Sep 2014 03:02:26 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Stefan Monnier Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Fri Sep 05 05:02:19 2014 Return-path: Envelope-to: ged-emacs-devel@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 1XPjmy-0000PS-PI for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Fri, 05 Sep 2014 05:02:16 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:55183 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPjmy-0003HH-EH for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:02:16 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:4830:134:3::10]:57608) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPjmd-0003H1-AH for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:02:04 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPjmU-0007Fk-7Y for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:01:55 -0400 Original-Received: from userp1040.oracle.com ([156.151.31.81]:51801) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.71) (envelope-from ) id 1XPjmU-0007FX-0r for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 04 Sep 2014 23:01:46 -0400 Original-Received: from acsinet21.oracle.com (acsinet21.oracle.com [141.146.126.237]) by userp1040.oracle.com (Sentrion-MTA-4.3.2/Sentrion-MTA-4.3.2) with ESMTP id s8531hZ8001634 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=OK); Fri, 5 Sep 2014 03:01:44 GMT Original-Received: from aserz7022.oracle.com (aserz7022.oracle.com [141.146.126.231]) by acsinet21.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id s8531g6O022794 (version=TLSv1/SSLv3 cipher=DHE-RSA-AES256-SHA bits=256 verify=NO); Fri, 5 Sep 2014 03:01:42 GMT Original-Received: from abhmp0018.oracle.com (abhmp0018.oracle.com [141.146.116.24]) by aserz7022.oracle.com (8.14.4+Sun/8.14.4) with ESMTP id s8531g9T019566; Fri, 5 Sep 2014 03:01:42 GMT In-Reply-To: <3b045884-0f98-49f3-addd-227a3c1403d1@default> X-Priority: 3 X-Mailer: Oracle Beehive Extensions for Outlook 2.0.1.8.2 (807160) [OL 12.0.6691.5000 (x86)] X-Source-IP: acsinet21.oracle.com [141.146.126.237] X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.4.x-2.6.x [generic] X-Received-From: 156.151.31.81 X-BeenThere: emacs-devel@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: "Emacs development discussions." List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.devel:174025 Archived-At: 1. It seems that the description of this feature is misleading. It apparently does not do what I feared from reading its description: give you delete-selection (type-to-replace) behavior without the region being active and highlighted. That was what I understood from the NEWS description: ** Delete Selection mode can now be used without Transient Mark mode. That would not have been an improvement. Users of type-to-replace behavior should see what they are replacing or deleting. The feature that was implemented is in fact a good one. It is better described, IMO, like this (or similarly): You can now get Delete-Selection mode behavior (type to replace the active region) also when Transient Mark mode is activated temporarily. That is, you cannot use delete-selection without the region being active and highlighted. You can use delete-selection even when region activation and highlighting are temporary. What is important is the behavior, regardless of what modes happen to be turned on. This feature brings d-s behavior to all situations where the region is active. Good. I think it would have been good to raise this possibility for discussion. But I am glad that this is now available. I hope the doc will make clear what this amounts to, starting with the NEWS description. 2. There are now 4 possible behaviors that a user can choose: a. d-s mode on and t-m mode on b. d-s mode off and t-m mode on c. d-s mode off and t-m mode off d. d-s mode on and t-m mode off =20 This is a good time to again consider the question of what the default behavior should be. It is currently (b). I think it should be (a). (a) is the behavior most new users are used to. It is the behavior I have preferred for Emacs, ever since it was first available, 20 or so years ago. (b) is the behavior we have now. (c) is the behavior that Emacs had until a few years ago. It was quite a battle to get Emacs to move from (c) to (b). (d) might make sense for someone who generally likes the behavior of (c) but occasionally wants the behavior of (a) temporarily. It is possible only now, because of the new feature described in (1). I think (a) is the best choice for the default behavior, and (d) is arguably the second best choice. It is true that some programmers develop code on platforms that generally have the behavior of (c) (perhaps also with some mouse-selection highlighting). But even then many of them interact with programs (e.g. web browsers) that have the behavior of (a). And both programmers on other platforms and non-programmers are generally used to the behavior of (a). 3. Besides having the limitation of not being able to just type to replace the region text, the current situation suffers from treating mouse selection exceptionally. A mouse selection has the deletion behavior of d-s mode, but without its type-to-replace behavior. At the time this mouse-selection feature was introduced I argued that mouse-selection should be just another form of region selection; it should not behave differently in any way. I would still argue that.