Re: delete-selection-mode as default

[Yuri Khan]

On Tue, Sep 18, 2018 at 9:16 PM Eli Zaretskii <address@hidden> wrote:

> > What changes by delete-selection-mode cannot be worked around by
> > (temporarily) deactivating the region?
>
> Deactivating the region makes it disappear from view, which I think we
> should avoid.  Users will not expect the region to disappear.
> Moreover, this is currently impossible, because your fictional C-S-g
> command doesn't exist.

Well, your hypothetical “disable-delete-selection-mode-temporarily”
does not exist either.

> If we are going to introduce a command for temporarily disabling or
> re-enabling the region, we had better do it without making it
> disappear from display, IMO.

As a user of transient-mark-mode, shift-select-mode and
delete-selection-mode, I’d expect to be among the target audience for
this facility being discussed. But, strangely, I very rarely find
myself in a situation where I have an active region that I want to
preserve for later while wanting to type something. I am certainly
okay with temporarily deactivating the mark and the region
highlighting, if I know I’ll be easily able to re-activate it.

How would a command to temporarily suspend delete-selection-mode work?
I assume the user will have to press at least one key to invoke it.
Then, I expect there will be an unpredictable sequence of self-insert
and/or yank and/or other editing commands, so the user will also
indicate the moment when he/she wants delete-selection-mode back. At
this point, it is not going to be any more efficient than just binding
delete-selection-mode to an easy key or binding C-S-g to (lambda ()
(interactive) (activate-mark)); each of these takes one keypress
before and one keypress after typing-without-replacing-selection.

Also, a user who enables and disables d-s-m often would need some kind
of indication of its current status — either a modeline lighter or a
special face for the region when it is active but will not be replaced
by typing.