[unicode-2] Menu-bar commands disable region selected with transient-mark-mode

[Alexandre Vassalotti]

I received this bug report from a user of my debian package of the
emacs-unicode-2 branch. I can confirm that the bug exists in vanilla
builds of the branch (IOW, it is not a packaging bug).

Cheers,
-- Alexandre


---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Malte Helmert <address@hidden>
Date: Nov 4, 2007 1:16 PM
Subject: emacs-snapshot problem
To: address@hidden


Hi Alexandre,

first of all, thanks for bringing the future of Emacs to us Ubuntu
users! :-) I have a problem though.

I'm on Feisty Fawn, and this is from my apt sources:
# deb     http://qppa.launchpad.net/avassalotti/ubuntu feisty main
# deb-src http://ppa.launchpad.net/avassalotti/ubuntu feisty main

This is the output of "dpkg -l *emacs*" (output line-wrapped manually):

Desired=Unknown/Install/Remove/Purge/Hold
| Status=Not/Installed/Config-files/Unpacked/Failed-config/Half-installed
|/ Err?=(none)/Hold/Reinst-required/X=both-problems (Status,Err:
uppercase=bad)
||/ Name                         Version                      Description
+++-============================-============================-========================================================================
ii  emacs-snapshot               20070928-1~feisty
    The GNU Emacs editor (development snapshot)
ii  emacs-snapshot-bin-common    20070928-1~feisty
    The GNU Emacs editor's shared, architecture dependent files
ii  emacs-snapshot-common        20070928-1~feisty
    The GNU Emacs editor's common infrastructure
ii  emacs-snapshot-el            20070928-1~feisty
    GNU Emacs LISP (.el) files
ii  emacs-snapshot-gtk           20070928-1~feisty
    The GNU Emacs editor (transitional package)
un  emacs-snapshot-nox           <none>
    (no description available)
un  emacs21                      <none>
    (no description available)
un  emacsen                      <none>
    (no description available)
ii  emacsen-common               1.4.17
    Common facilities for all emacsen
un  qemacs                       <none>
    (no description available)
un  xemacs-support               <none>
    (no description available)

I have the following easy to reproduce problem (on a KDE desktop):
1. # emacs -q -no-site-file &
2. Mark some lines in scratch buffer with mouse.
3. Click "File", then "Print Region".

This results in an error "The mark is not active now".

This seems to be due to some bad interaction of the menu bar and
transient mark mode, or something along those lines. At least I can get
this to work if I turn off transient mark mode and use "proper" marks,
or if I type "M-x print-region" rather than using the menu. Keyboard
shortcuts also work.

The problem occurs with all menu commands that use the region, not just
"print-region". For example, the menu command "Emacs-Lisp"/"Indent
Region" behaves the same way, while "M-x indent-region" works fine.

Here is a workaround:

  ((defun my-print-region () (interactive)
    (let* ((mark-even-if-inactive t)
           (from (point))
           (to (mark)))
      (ps-print-region from to)))

(Then install this in the menu.)

Is this a genuine bug or some problem with my install? Is it already known?

Best,

Malte