Re: Shift selection using interactive spec

[M Jared Finder]

Kim F. Storm wrote:
> Stefan Monnier <address@hidden> writes:
>
> > > To fix this bug, we would have to change the external package.
> > Yup.  We have to fix it anyway in order for the shift to start the selection.
>
> That's the beauty of CUA's command property approach - you can fix
> it simply by setting a property on the problematic commands in
> your own .emacs -- no need to mess inside the source code.
>
> And it is the same for the delete-selection feature -- you can
> make external packages delete-selection aware simply by setting
> a suitable property.
>
> I.e. if someone complaints that package xxx doesn't work, it is
> much easier to tell them to "add these two lines to your .emacs"
> rather than "you need to find file xxx.el and edit the interactive
> spec of commands xxx-forward and xxx-backward, and then byte-compile
> the file".
>
> But I've given up already - it seems that most people making decisions
> on this issue don't use shift-select or delete-selection themselves,
> and they are not interested in listening to those who use it and have
> proven experience in implementing it (and having spent a lot of time
> making it work very well).

As an honest-to-god USER of Emacs, I want to say I completely agree with 
 Kim, here.  Since I discovered cua-mode, I've had the following code 
in my .emacs:

> (let ((move-fns '(c-forward-conditional c-backward-conditional
>                   c-down-conditional c-up-conditional
>                   c-down-conditional-with-else
>                   c-up-conditional-with-else
>                   c-beginning-of-statement c-end-of-statement)))
>   (require 'cua-base)
>   (dolist (symbol move-fns)
>     (unless (eq 'move (get symbol 'CUA))
>       (display-warning 'emacs (format "Adding CUA property to `%s'." symbol))
>       (setf (get symbol 'CUA) 'move))))

All I have to do to make an existing command support shift-select is add 
its name to the list.  (The move-fns list used to be a lot longer when I 
was using Emacs 21.)

If adding shift-select support to existing functions is much harder than 
adding a function name to a list, and can not be done WITHOUT MODIFYING 
THE PACKAGE, I will consider that a huge loss of functionality.

I can not grok why you want to remove this very elegant way of 
supporting shift-select.  If you guys end up removing it, I'll justkeep 
using the old CUA mode, as it seems much more elegant to me, and more 
importantly, JUST WORKS.

  -- MJF