From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.io!.POSTED.blaine.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Eli Zaretskii Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.bugs Subject: bug#50950: "(emacs) Mark" should contrast to "selecting" text in other editors Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2021 22:43:33 +0300 Message-ID: <83pmsocyze.fsf@gnu.org> References: Injection-Info: ciao.gmane.io; posting-host="blaine.gmane.org:116.202.254.214"; logging-data="35751"; mail-complaints-to="usenet@ciao.gmane.io" Cc: 50950@debbugs.gnu.org To: Stefan Kangas Original-X-From: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Fri Oct 01 21:44:10 2021 Return-path: Envelope-to: geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([209.51.188.17]) by ciao.gmane.io with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.92) (envelope-from ) id 1mWOS2-00096K-CQ for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 21:44:10 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([::1]:33526 helo=lists1p.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mWOS0-0002zc-Rz for geb-bug-gnu-emacs@m.gmane-mx.org; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:44:08 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::10]:60150) by lists.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mWORu-0002zR-S7 for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:44:02 -0400 Original-Received: from debbugs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.43]:45851) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtps (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_128_GCM_SHA256:128) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mWORu-0004p9-Kw for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:44:02 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-debbugs by debbugs.gnu.org with local (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1mWORu-0007ye-Hv for bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:44:02 -0400 X-Loop: help-debbugs@gnu.org Resent-From: Eli Zaretskii Original-Sender: "Debbugs-submit" Resent-CC: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Resent-Date: Fri, 01 Oct 2021 19:44:02 +0000 Resent-Message-ID: Resent-Sender: help-debbugs@gnu.org X-GNU-PR-Message: followup 50950 X-GNU-PR-Package: emacs Original-Received: via spool by 50950-submit@debbugs.gnu.org id=B50950.163311743930648 (code B ref 50950); Fri, 01 Oct 2021 19:44:02 +0000 Original-Received: (at 50950) by debbugs.gnu.org; 1 Oct 2021 19:43:59 +0000 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:57397 helo=debbugs.gnu.org) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1mWORr-0007yG-CI for submit@debbugs.gnu.org; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:43:59 -0400 Original-Received: from eggs.gnu.org ([209.51.188.92]:54990) by debbugs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.84_2) (envelope-from ) id 1mWORq-0007y6-4j for 50950@debbugs.gnu.org; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:43:58 -0400 Original-Received: from fencepost.gnu.org ([2001:470:142:3::e]:54764) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mWORk-0004gT-GJ; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:43:52 -0400 Original-Received: from 84.94.185.95.cable.012.net.il ([84.94.185.95]:3965 helo=home-c4e4a596f7) by fencepost.gnu.org with esmtpsa (TLS1.2:ECDHE_RSA_AES_256_GCM_SHA384:256) (Exim 4.90_1) (envelope-from ) id 1mWORj-0006yE-0s; Fri, 01 Oct 2021 15:43:52 -0400 In-Reply-To: (message from Stefan Kangas on Fri, 1 Oct 2021 21:31:22 +0200) X-BeenThere: debbugs-submit@debbugs.gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.18 Precedence: list X-BeenThere: bug-gnu-emacs@gnu.org List-Id: "Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors" List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Errors-To: bug-gnu-emacs-bounces+geb-bug-gnu-emacs=m.gmane-mx.org@gnu.org Original-Sender: "bug-gnu-emacs" Xref: news.gmane.io gmane.emacs.bugs:216081 Archived-At: > From: Stefan Kangas > Date: Fri, 1 Oct 2021 21:31:22 +0200 > > Severity: wishlist > > The section '(emacs) Mark' starts with saying: > > "Many Emacs commands operate on an arbitrary contiguous part of the > current buffer." > > This makes it sound like this is an unusual, super advanced feature, > when in the rest of the world this is just known as "selecting text". > We should avoid the words "arbitrary" and "contiguous" which, while > accurate, comes off as extremely highbrow for such an extremely basic > feature. I disagree that the region is a basic feature. It may look deceptively similar to text selections, but it isn't. We have the region, the active region, and the shift- and mouse-selected text, which all look similar, and sometimes behave similarly, but they are not identical. > We should re-work this section to contrast the unusual parts of point, > mark and region to the types of text selection that exists in other > editors. We can safely assume that the latter is well known. The region and selected text are not identical. The differences are subtle and not easy to explain, but saying that they are the same is worse than that, because it will trip users. If anything, we should perhaps mention in this overview text that Emacs has these 3 overlapping concepts (which are explained by the sections of this chapter), because their addition to Emacs was piecemeal and the overview was never updated to cover all of them. But I don't think we should consider this a simple feature: that would prevent us from explaining the subtleties that users should be aware of.