RE: Some developement questions

[Drew Adams]

> > I was referring to making a selection with shift. 
> 
> From the Emacs manual:
>      To turn off shift-selection, set ‘shift-select-mode’ to ‘nil’.  Doing
>      so does not disable setting the mark via mouse commands.

And besides the manual (recommended) you can discover this
(if you know that it is called "shift selection") using the menu:

1. Options > Customize Emacs > Specific Option...
2. Type `shift TAB' (or `shi TAB') to complete to `shift-selection-mode'.
3. Hit `RET'.

Or more directly, `M-x customize-option shi TAB RET'.