RE: ARG and Dired commands, was: Re: [External] : Re: master 2ed2999: Improve documentation of new Xref options

[Drew Adams]

I'll just give this additional argument in favor
of an optional ARG parameter for `dired-do-*'
commands:

It's handy to be able to act on one or a few
files without regard to which files are marked.
That lets you _keep a set of markings_ and yet
perform a one-off action on some other files.

This is built into the basic Dired UI.  Just
provide a numeric prefix arg N, to act on the
file of the current line and the next N-1 files.
E.g., `C-1 C' to copy the current line's file,
ignoring all marks.

That's really the point behind ARG, IMO.

Yes, it can be handy to act on the next ARG
files even when no files are marked, but where
ARG really shines is when there are markings
that you don't want to lose.

An alternative for that use case is to use
`* c' to temporarily change all `*' marks to
some other mark (e.g. `X'), then act on some
files as a one-off (having to mark them, if
more than one), then erase those temporary
`*' marks and change the other mark (e.g. `X')
back to the regular mark (`*').  You can see
why that's less handy, hopefully.

I hope you do consider adding an optional ARG
argument to your `dired-do-*' commands, and
give that ARG the usual behavior.  Unless you
have a good reason not to (do you?).