Re: Transient Mark Mode on by default

[Kim F. Storm]

Thomas Lord <address@hidden> writes:

> That doesn't give a "modal" system where sometimes C-v means
> scroll-down and other times it means PASTE.   

With CUA on, C-v always means paste, so it is not modal.  
Neither is C-z (undo).

C-x and C-c are modal with CUA on, but have you actually tried it?
In practice, it is very rarely notiable.  

Of course, I've used Emacs before CUA came along - but I wrote CUA --
and still use it -- because it drove me crazy to have to use different
control sequences in Emacs than in every other application I used.

And since Emacs was the only application that was different, I decided
to implement the necessary functions to make it work _good enough_ to
make me switch comfortably between Emacs and other applications.

> Emacs documentation will still be saying things like "Use C-x f to
> open a file."    That's a burden on new users who elect to remap
> C-x to CUT (and some other key to C-x).    But it's a small burden
> because it's just those few keys and the rules about how to type those
> characters apply consistently, all the time.

So to avoid the (tranparent) modal behaviour of CUA, you shuffle everything
around instead.  I don't see that as a better - or simpler - solution.
At least it is a solution to a problem which doesn't exist IMHO.

>
> -t
>
>
> Richard Stallman wrote:
>> Shift-selection is fine, but I don't think we should change the
>> meaning of C-c, C-v and C-x.
>>
>> All else being equal, it would be better to be compatible with other
>> programs, including in this.  But all else is not equal, and this
>> change would not fit into Emacs.

In practice, it fits very well, but I have no problem with it being
an option which you have to turn on explicitly.  But it would be
nice to mention it on the splash screen.

Also, if shift-select is implemented as default, I think many users
will be utterly confused if C-x doesn't do cut and C-c doesn't copy.

So all-in-all I really don't see why everybody is making a lot of
fuzz over making shift-select a 1st class emacs feature -- when
we could just as well just leave it to CUA mode to DTRT, but possibly
make a few enhancements to basic Emacs functionalities to assist CUA
mode to do its work.

But once again, I know this is a lost battle...

-- 
Kim F. Storm <address@hidden> http://www.cua.dk