FW: commands to select things of different kinds

[Drew Adams]

Resending, at Richard's request. 

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard Stallman Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2007 1:54 PM
> To: Drew Adams
> 
>     Not really; haven't thought much about it. As I said, 
>     I've been using
>     `C-M-SPC' for `mark-thing' (stealing from `mark-sexp') 
>     and `M-@' for
>     `cycle-thing-region' (stealing from `mark-word').
> 
> Those might be a good replacement, because I would expect people don't
> use those two bindings very much.  But we have to ask people first.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Drew Adams Sent: Tuesday, July 17, 2007 9:52 PM
> To: address@hidden
> 
> >     > If the region is not yet active, then you are prompted (with
> >     > completion) for the type of thing to select. The default type
> >     > is `sexp'.
> > 
> >     For the first such thing, the region is not active, so you 
> >     are prompted. For subsequent (successive) things, there is
> >     no prompt - the same type is used as the last. When you are
> >     prompted, `sexp' is the default type.
> > 
> > I see.  Maybe it is a good idea.  If people like it, we can 
> install it
> > in Emacs.
> > 
> > Do you have suggested bindings for these two commands?
> 
> Not really; haven't thought much about it. As I said, I've 
> been using `C-M-SPC' for `mark-thing' (stealing from 
> `mark-sexp') and `M-@' for `cycle-thing-region' (stealing 
> from `mark-word'). But, as I also said, I'm not suggesting 
> changing those bindings for Emacs.
> 
> I think these commands are mainly useful for Transient Mark 
> mode, if that helps. Perhaps there are some bindings that 
> normally make less sense in t-m mode, which could therefore 
> be recuperated. I don't know.

> -----Original Message----- 
> From: Drew Adams Sent: Monday, July 16, 2007 12:17 AM
> To: Emacs-Devel
> 
> Any interest in these commands? They let you select (that is, 
> mark) various
> things at or near point. They are most useful in Transient 
> Mark mode - they
> act differently depending on whether the mark is active.
> 
> * `mark-thing' selects successive things, starting at point. 
> The mark is put
> at the same place that command 'forward-'thing would put it 
> (using the same
> prefix argument). If the region is not yet active, then you 
> are prompted
> (with completion) for the type of thing to select. The default type is
> `sexp'.
> 
> * `cycle-thing-region' selects one thing at or near point 
> (just the thing,
> not from point through the thing, even if the thing is not exactly at
> point). Repeat it to cycle among the thing types - one thing 
> of the current
> type is selected at each invocation. The default order of 
> types is `word',
> `sexp', `list', `line', `sentence', `paragraph', `page', 
> `defun', `number',
> `form'. That order is customizable, and a major mode could 
> also change it to
> put the most commonly used types first.
> 
> I bind `mark-thing' to `C-M-SPC' as a replacement for `mark-sexp'.
> 
> I bind `cycle-thing-region' to `M-@' as a replacement for 
> `mark-word'. (By
> default, it does what `mark-word' does without a prefix arg. Unlike,
> `mark-thing', however, `cycle-thing-region' does not accept a 
> prefix arg.)
> 
> I don't propose these bindings for Emacs generally, but if you use
> transient-mark mode you might want to give them a try.
> 
> To select successive things in transient-mark mode, you can use
> `cycle-thing-region' as an alternative to completion for 
> choosing the thing
> type for `mark-thing' - but you need to use `C-x C-x' between 
> the two. That
> is, you can use 'M-@ C-x C-x C-M-SPC' to select successive 
> words, 'M-@ M-@
> C-x C-x C-M-SPC' for successive symbols, and so on.
> 
> The code is attached.

thing-cmds.el
Description: Binary data