From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Jason Earl Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Enabling Transient Mark Mode by default Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:15:21 -0700 Message-ID: <87ablvb4om.fsf@xmission.com> References: <87myq4saw1.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <878x1ov227.fsf@jurta.org> <878x1os6mt.fsf@catnip.gol.com> <47B39231.8010108@gmail.com> <200802151711.m1FHB3Y3008798@sallyv1.ics.uci.edu> <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> <86lk5f4fjb.fsf@timbral.net> <87ejb7babz.fsf@xmission.com> <85lk5fcod6.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1203549353 16539 80.91.229.12 (20 Feb 2008 23:15:53 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2008 23:15:53 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Evans Winner , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: David Kastrup Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Feb 21 00:16:17 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 1JRyAf-0003Jv-Fd for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 21 Feb 2008 00:16:13 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1] helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JRyAA-0006a1-6a for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:15:42 -0500 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JRyA6-0006Zj-A0 for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:15:38 -0500 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1JRyA3-0006ZE-MN for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:15:38 -0500 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1JRyA3-0006ZB-Ha for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:15:35 -0500 Original-Received: from out01.mta.xmission.com ([166.70.13.231]) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1JRy9z-0004JC-F5; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 18:15:31 -0500 Original-Received: from [166.70.13.201] (helo=mgr1.xmission.com) by out01.mta.xmission.com with esmtp (Exim 4.62) (envelope-from ) id 1JRyA0-0001bh-0E; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:15:32 -0700 Original-Received: from jearl.fttp.xmission.com ([166.70.233.10] helo=workhorse.earlhome) by mgr1.xmission.com with esmtps (TLS-1.0:RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA:32) (Exim 4.50) id 1JRy9w-0005JN-53; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:15:29 -0700 Original-Received: from nat.visiongrp.com ([65.162.166.20] helo=jearl-laptop) by workhorse.earlhome with esmtpsa (TLS-1.0:DHE_RSA_AES_256_CBC_SHA1:32) (Exim 4.63) (envelope-from ) id 1JRy9w-0005FZ-Aq; Wed, 20 Feb 2008 16:15:28 -0700 Face: iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAADAAAAAwCAAAAAByaaZbAAAACXBIWXMAABKbAAASmwHgklkM AAABz0lEQVRIx5VW2bHDIAz0jPtRS+pxG1E/fEUHhzjeC2EcJ8JZ0LFa80AkrrgB6L/0K0ypc3Y9 UqYh0I9eOtzG8hwPdkARJiJmOQBk20Ft0OuDcANA/78jdpd2AL99sFy4NDbQLVrsCbAEXYA3DVzE 8D/gkNbJpZsdhHMMN2kdAOKrSo8ttNZrTrYdnEgVweWu0p5b5vjrwSXxoSv73dIibaoSu/4u/vyB sxyD/9YCiE7IRrOP9M4uSK1OrcgOkANA2+PVBsHfQU8AbafRH8e0LoBUSDn2w+JiJiOXi6AngBx7 erYTF42M3wDYAFvH/erSGlNZg/7q0s9pLR1xLNyJGqo8xo2Qzm918AW0etoeQcMHldaDz43STnru k9Lo3XslGgeLidQ/Is0l3bJKkDQ71L7GZGY8DqlEF4l4oSQRMIBQT5JnadSSom8nmZEk/xxinLSR XcgoUyHhbQ8DZHZh1la298tKDaF5ZhXjjd6YALvczwB1SX4CWOGWGGRySQ79kGesmtNLUdOUFkDU gceCp9cuEj6ogYbgqHSzyYW59MKY9EUDqbrTyyGF6eiA2g+6gtoUZKr90A8jlXzL4STZTz3aoN3Q zkNx7unnn3YC+gA3WfRuzLleFgAAAEV6VFh0Q29tbWVudAAAeNpT8MxNTE9VSE/NSy1KLElNUUiq VHD3C1Vwz8gvLilOLsosKFHQSEkty0xOtS3Iyy1KLNfkAgDinBJPV21RsgAAABp6VFh0SlBFRy1D b2xvcnNwYWNlAAB42jMEAAAyADKxisffAAAAInpUWHRKUEVHLVNhbXBsaW5nLWZhY3RvcnMAAHja M6wwBAABtwDbWB23uwAAAABJRU5ErkJggg== In-Reply-To: <85lk5fcod6.fsf@lola.goethe.zz> (David Kastrup's message of "Wed, 20 Feb 2008 22:24:53 +0100") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.60 (gnu/linux) Received-SPF: neutral (mgr1.xmission.com: 166.70.233.10 is neither permitted nor denied by domain of xmission.com) client-ip=166.70.233.10; envelope-from=jearl@xmission.com; helo=workhorse.earlhome; X-SA-Exim-Connect-IP: 166.70.233.10 X-SA-Exim-Mail-From: jearl@xmission.com X-Spam-DCC: XMission; sa01 1397; Body=1 Fuz1=1 Fuz2=1 X-SA-Exim-Version: 4.2 (built Thu, 03 Mar 2005 10:44:12 +0100) X-SA-Exim-Scanned: Yes (on mgr1.xmission.com) X-detected-kernel: by monty-python.gnu.org: Linux 2.6, seldom 2.4 (older, 4) 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:89743 Archived-At: David Kastrup writes: > Jason Earl writes: > >> The alternative, as the manual points out, is to enable >> transient-mark-mode and have Emacs work like most newbies >> would expect a text editor to work. > > You are presuming that enabling transient-mark-mode makes Emacs work > like most newbies (or people) would expect a text editor to work. > > I disagree strongly with that presumption. Other editors have marked > regions that are _independent_ of point. Emacs doesn't. > Transient-mark-mode merely introduces some artifacts of typical text > editor regions, but because point is by necessity one region end, the > side effects are quite obnoxious and the result in no way leads to a > behavior typical for the work flow of other editors. Yes, I agree that transient-mark-mode works somewhat differently than most text editors. However, without transient-mark-mode Emacs is *remarkably* different than other editors. More importantly, transient-mark-mode helps give the newbie clues as to how setting the region works in Emacs. Think of it as training wheels for region marking. Without those visual clues it is easy for even the experienced Emacs user to forget where the mark is. Of course, the experienced Emacs user has read the manual and knows about C-x C-x and friends. The newbie, on the other hand, doesn't have a clue about these keystrokes. As far as they are concerned Emacs is simply too old-fashioned to do something sensible like highlight the region they are marking. To make matters worse the new user is in for a surprise when they try to actually use the "invisible" region that they are trying to mark because, as you point out, it is likely to work differently than they expect. At least with transient-mark-mode Emacs gives the user some visual clues that can help the new user figure out what just happened to their text. Marking regions in Emacs *should* be different than how it is done in other editors because the way Emacs marks regions is better :). However, it is not likely to *seem* better to the uninitiated if they have a hard time telling what parts of the text comprise the region. Just for fun I fired up gedit to see how that particular editor dealt with regions. As you pointed out it didn't work even remotely like Emacs, but the fact that I could see the region that I marked did make it easy for me to quickly deduce how it worked. I think that Emacs should extend the same courtesy for newcomers. For those of you that don't want training wheels turning the feature off is very straightforward. Jason