From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Stefan Monnier Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.devel Subject: Re: delete-selection-mode Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:06 -0400 Message-ID: References: <87ocitw2dl.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <201003130001.o2D01FFQ003489@godzilla.ics.uci.edu> <87vdd1yqe4.fsf@stupidchicken.com> <87eijjzrkd.fsf_-_@mail.jurta.org> <20100317143519.GB4381@muc.de> <87vdcui6oh.fsf@uwakimon.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp> <20100318101223.GB2704@muc.de> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: dough.gmane.org 1268923799 30873 80.91.229.12 (18 Mar 2010 14:49:59 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Thu, 18 Mar 2010 14:49:59 +0000 (UTC) Cc: Juri Linkov , "Stephen J. Turnbull" , Dan Nicolaescu , Chong Yidong , emacs-devel@gnu.org To: Alan Mackenzie Original-X-From: emacs-devel-bounces+ged-emacs-devel=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Thu Mar 18 15:49:52 2010 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 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NsH2k-0003ob-L4 for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 15:49:50 +0100 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:56985 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NsH2k-0007yN-0H for ged-emacs-devel@m.gmane.org; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:50 -0400 Original-Received: from mailman by lists.gnu.org with tmda-scanned (Exim 4.43) id 1NsH2I-0007ag-6k for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:22 -0400 Original-Received: from [140.186.70.92] (port=54193 helo=eggs.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1NsH29-0007Nd-6g for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:18 -0400 Original-Received: from Debian-exim by eggs.gnu.org with spam-scanned (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NsH23-0007YB-JA for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:13 -0400 Original-Received: from ironport2-out.teksavvy.com ([206.248.154.183]:47380 helo=ironport2-out.pppoe.ca) by eggs.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1NsH23-0007Xv-GP for emacs-devel@gnu.org; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:07 -0400 X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Filtered: true X-IronPort-Anti-Spam-Result: AvsEAETaoUtFpZMX/2dsb2JhbACbLHS6CIJQgikEixs X-IronPort-AV: E=Sophos;i="4.51,267,1267419600"; d="scan'208";a="58540846" Original-Received: from 69-165-147-23.dsl.teksavvy.com (HELO pastel.home) ([69.165.147.23]) by ironport2-out.pppoe.ca with ESMTP; 18 Mar 2010 10:49:06 -0400 Original-Received: by pastel.home (Postfix, from userid 20848) id 30BAE7FF4; Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:49:06 -0400 (EDT) In-Reply-To: <20100318101223.GB2704@muc.de> (Alan Mackenzie's message of "Thu, 18 Mar 2010 10:12:23 +0000") User-Agent: Gnus/5.13 (Gnus v5.13) Emacs/23.1.93 (gnu/linux) X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.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:122166 Archived-At: > I also think that the distinction between kill-region and > delete-region would be more confusing than helpful to a beginner. Indeed. > OK. The penalty for that convenience is having your region explode and > disappear when you accidentally type a self-insert character (or arrow > key). This might happen if you hit the x before the M in M-x, or > something like that. Or, you might regionify a defun with C-M-h for some > reason and accidentally lose it. These are very valid concerns, and even if we don't enable delsel by default, I think we should try and come up with ways to reduce the pain. E.g. making sure that you can revert the damage with `undo' (e.g. the delsel behavior should only affect buffer where undo is enabled; and maybe undoing a self-insert which also deleted the region might undo the self-insert, undo the delete-region *and* re-activate the region). > It's "obviously" useful to be able to type extra text into an already > "existing" region. The region is used for many things other than just > being deleted. Maybe there should be more ways than C-g to deactivate the region: Currently, self-insert is one such way, but with delsel that extra way is removed. >> > delete-select-mode is such an irritating distraction >> In Emacsen without zmacs-regions/transient-mark-mode on, I agree >> strongly. In Emacs with t-m-m, I disagree strongly. delsel only applies to active regions, so it shouldn't affect users when t-m-m is disabled. That would seem to imply that overall you disagree strongly with "delete-select-mode is such an irritating distraction". Yet, your message seems to indicate otherwise. What am I missing? > I think we should also distinguish between pure new UI features, and > those that actively interfere with established usage. My view is that we > should never make something default in Emacs if it's likely to provoke > the angry reaction "How do I disable this *!=A3$ing thing?". > delete-select-mode falls into this latter category. So does > transient-mark-mode. Many things have fallen into this category in the past: - X11 (need to use -nw). - menu-bar - tool-bar - scroll-bar - fringes - blinking-cursor - t-m-m - font-lock - mouse-1-click-follows-link - "prettification" of info buffers Luckily, we don't have to care too much about those conservative veterans, because honestly their only alternative is Emacs-NN (where NN is smaller than some threshold): pretty much all other applications impose changes to their UI at a faster pace than Emacs ;-) > Is there any evidence that delete-select-mode is instrinsically a good > thing, disregarding the fact that it has become common? For DEL, I think it is very natural, yes. For self-insert, I'm not really sure: I haven't been annoyed by it, but I haven't used it much either. Stefan