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Documentation of transient-mark-mode is sloppy, wrong, and confused.


From: Alan Mackenzie
Subject: Documentation of transient-mark-mode is sloppy, wrong, and confused.
Date: Thu, 28 May 2009 12:29:27 +0000
User-agent: Mutt/1.5.9i

Hi, Emacs!

The description in the Emacs manual of Transient Mark Mode and related
topics falls somewhat short of being adequate.  In particular:

On page "Mark":

(i) There are no @dfn{active}, @dfn{active mark}, @dfn{active region}.
  o - My suggestion: "The region is termed @dfn{active} when it is
    highlighted.  The mark is @dfn{active} whenever the region is active.
    This usage of ``active'' is largely historical, originating from the
    time when region commands were disabled when the region wasn't
    highlighted."  (BTW: what is the correct past participle of
    "highlight"?  Is it "highlighted" or "highlit"?)

(ii) "If the mark is active, the region always extends between point and
  the mark," is gibberish.  Does the region only sometimes extend between
  point and mark in other circumstances?

(iii) There is confusion here as to whether a region continues to exist
  when it is "inactive".  My personal view is that the region comes into
  existence when the mark is first set, and both continue existing until
  the buffer is killed, regardless of whether they happen to be "active"
  at any particular time.

(iii) "The text between point and the mark is called \"the region\"",
  coupled with "The region persists only until you use it" implies that
  this text no longer "persists" after the region is "used".  This sort
  of suggests that "using" a region kills the text in it.  At any rate,
  this bit of manual gives a very sloppy impression, even if it does have
  a coherent meaning.

(iv) "The mark is automatically \"deactivated\" after certain non-motion
  commands, including any command that changes the text in the buffer."
  appears to be false.  (It's not possible to be definite here without
  knowing exactly what "active" means.)  At any rate, when the region is
  not highlit, C-w works.  (This is due to the default setting of the
  perplexingly named `mark-even-if-inactive'; I think this variable
  should be renamed to `allow-commands-on-inactive-region'.)

On page "Persistent Mark":

(v) The page title "Persistent Marks" is stupid.  Marks ARE persistent
  (see (iii) above) (unless you're talking about the ones which were
  superseded by euros in 2001).  This page should be renamed "Transient
  Mark Mode", or perhaps "Disabling Transient Mark Mode".  This comment
  also applies to most of the uses of "persistent" in this page.

(vi) "By default, the region is highlighted whenever it exists, and
  disappears once you use it or explicitly deactivate the mark.".  This
  is untrue, or at best horribly confused.  (See (iii) above).  What does
  it mean to say that a region "disappears"?  Given the given
  @dfn{region} (see (iii)), "disappears" can only mean "is killed", which
  is absurd.

(vii) This page fails explicitly to state the essence of deactivated
  transient mark mode, namely that the region isn't highlit.  Or, rather
  it mentions it only in the small print section, which nobody reads
  unless desperate.

(viii) "When Transient Mark mode is off, the mark is persistent: it is
  _never_ deactivated, but can be set to different locations using
  commands such as `C-<SPC>'.  After the first time you set the mark in a
  buffer, there is always a region in that buffer." is horribly
  confusing.
  o - This paragraph seems to hold, regardless of whether t-m-m is
    enabled, hence doesn't belong on this page.  Maybe.
  o - If an @dfn{active} region means a highlighted one (as I suggest
    above), then with disabled t-m-m, the region is NEVER ACTIVE, not
    "always active".

(ix) Etc.  There're more things sloppy in this page, but this email is
  already long enough.

#########################################################################

Additionally, there appears to be a conspiracy to marginalise the
classical Emacs mark handling.  Surely discussion of this belongs in the
main "Mark" page, not hidden in some misnamed subsidiary page.  I would
be prepared to make this change myself.

Other than that, the best way to fix all these faults, I believe, is to
replace all occurances of the ridiculous phrases "active region" and
"active mark" by the accurate "highlit region" (or "highlighted region"),
after which the absurdities will pretty much resolve themselves.

-- 
Alan Mackenzie (Nuremberg, Germany).




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