Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!decwrl!sun!pitstop!sundc!seismo!uunet!mcvax!cernvax!ethz!ceb
From: ceb@ethz.UUCP (Charles Buckley)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Re: Sections in Gnu Emacs Buffers?
Message-ID: <787@ethz.UUCP>
Date: 19 Feb 89 14:07:38 GMT
References: <2846@hplabsz.HPL.HP.COM> <4300032@m.cs.uiuc.edu> <49769@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <779@ethz.UUCP> <50744@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Organization: ETH Zuerich
Lines: 31
In-reply-to: Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu's message of 15 Feb 89 15:19:22 GMT

In article <50744@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> Ram-Ashwin@cs.yale.edu (Ashwin Ram) writes:

   In article <779@ethz.UUCP>, ceb@ethz.UUCP (Charles Buckley) writes:
   > While you're at it, how about simply having a hook to display the text
   > between the point and the mark in inverse-video, or standout mode, as
   > the jargoneurs would say?

   This comes up time and again.  I agree that something like this is needed.
   However, I would not like the text between mark and point to be in
   inverse-video all the time because the mark is used for different purposes in
   Emacs.  For example, when you M-> to the end of the file, Emacs leaves a mark
   at your previous position.

Excuse me that I  did not tell the whole story.  Yes, using  the
simple  scheme of always inverting the field between the point and
mark can lead to what hardened users  of EMACS might  find as an
unacceptably cluttered display at times.  However, the system from
which I took my cue (the Symbolics Zmacs editor) also provides an
escape from this which is much  simpler than the essentially
batch-mode heuristics you suggest,which is that any buffer modifying
command causes this inversionto be turned off.  

I like  this for its simplicity - I don't necessarily recommend doing
it this way.  Probably two keystroke commands, so you don't get beeped
at about a read-only buffer when all you wanted to do is do an
insertion and then undo it to turn off things, would be optimal.

Point remains:  All this is kitchen work, to be grown by users as they
like: only thing missing is an entry point into the speed-sensitive C
code to enable this inversion, probably a special variable or
something.  What happens afterward is `peoples choice'.