From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Chong Yidong Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: Documentation of transient-mark-mode is sloppy, wrong, and confused. Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 16:48:15 -0400 Message-ID: <87bppdx8c0.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> References: <20090528122927.GA2175@muc.de> <87fxepf9s8.fsf@cyd.mit.edu> <20090528201529.GA4605@muc.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1243543689 7685 80.91.229.12 (28 May 2009 20:48:09 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 20:48:09 +0000 (UTC) Cc: emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu May 28 22:48:06 2009 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 1M9mWA-0004ri-4y for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 28 May 2009 22:48:02 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:47321 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1M9mW9-0001T7-Hp for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 28 May 2009 16:48:01 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1M9mW4-0001Rh-Ta for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 28 May 2009 16:47:56 -0400 Original-Received: from exim by lists.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1M9mW0-0001Id-Dd for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 28 May 2009 16:47:56 -0400 Original-Received: from [199.232.76.173] (port=51629 helo=monty-python.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1M9mW0-0001IL-3a for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 28 May 2009 16:47:52 -0400 Original-Received: from cyd.mit.edu ([18.115.2.24]:52968) by monty-python.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1M9mVz-0002nX-IG for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 28 May 2009 16:47:51 -0400 Original-Received: by cyd.mit.edu (Postfix, from userid 1000) id 771EE57E21E; Thu, 28 May 2009 16:48:15 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <20090528201529.GA4605@muc.de> (Alan Mackenzie's message of "Thu, 28 May 2009 20:15:29 +0000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.0.91 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by monty-python.gnu.org: Genre and OS details not recognized. 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:111159 Archived-At: Alan Mackenzie writes: > The essence of my unhappiness is that "active" isn't defined. You've > put in a formal @dfn{active}, but weaselled out of actually defining > it. You state what happens _when_ the mark is "active", but not what > a mark has to do or to be to acquire or to lose the essence of > "active"ness. Good point; I've changed this accordingly. As for changing the "active mark" terminology, that's not particularly profitable, because it's already deeply embedded in the C and Lisp code for over a decade. (There are, of course, many other terminology problems of this sort in Emacs.) The main thing that's important, I think, is that the description of the "transient-mark-mode enabled" behavior and the "transient-mark-mode disabled" behavior are each internally consistent; they aren't always mutually consistent, but that's too bad. > In *scratch*, disable Transient Mark Mode, write the following line and > put the region as indicated: > > one two threeee > ^ ^ > | | > point mark > > The mark is now active (since t-m-m is nil). Therefore the region is > "active". Execute the command `ispell-word' with M-$; this is a command > which supposedly works on the region when the region is "active". It > fails to flag the non-word "threeee", suggesting that it regards the > region as "inactive". As described in the section about what happens when Transient Mark mode is disabled: Some commands, which ordinarily operate on the region when the mark is active, instead act on the entire buffer. For instance, @kbd{C-x u} normally reverses changes within the region if the mark is active; when Transient Mark mode is off, it acts on the entire buffer. However, you can type @kbd{C-u C-x u} to make it operate on the region. @xref{Undo}. Other commands that act this way are identified in their own documentation.