Re: delete-selection-mode as default

[Charles A. Roelli]

> From: hw <address@hidden>
> Cc: Richard Stallman <address@hidden>, address@hidden,
>       emacs-devel <address@hidden>
> Date: Sat, 08 Sep 2018 17:52:07 +0200
> 
> Elias Mårtenson <address@hidden> writes:
> 
> > Without active regions, there would never be an expectation that backspace
> > deletes anything but one character.
> 
> How come it wasn't distinguished between the concept of a region being
> active and the visual aid of marking a region?

Separating these two concepts could be useful, but Emacs would then
need some other way of showing the user that a region is active, like
a mode line indicator.  We would then also need bindings for
activating and deactivating the region, and for turning the visual aid
on and off.

> [...]
> 
> I think for the strict-selection-mode I'd prefer, it would help to
> disable transient-mark-mode.  But how can I see what I have selected?

The most common answer to that is to use "C-u C-x C-x", which
temporarily activates the region (thus highlighting it) and exchanges
the point and the mark.  But there is no command to turn on the
highlighting of the region directly.

> It would even be possible to leave the visual markers active while the
> user is doing something else if transient-mark-mode didn't insist on the
> region being active when it's visually highlighted.  

I'd like this too.

>                                                      It would only need
> a key binding to stop marking a region.  I'd appreciate it if I didn't
> need to always do something with a region immediately and could leave it
> highlighted, or leave several regions highlighted at the same time.

For a second region, use the secondary selection.  We don't yet have
keyboard bindings for its commands, unfortunately, though Drew's
package "second-sel" suggests C-M-y:

https://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SecondarySelection#second-sel.el