Re: delete-selection-mode

[David Reitter]

On 22 Apr 2008, at 13:20, Robert J. Chassell wrote:
> No, the arrow keys without shift do NOT deactivate the region; they
> deactivate the HIGHLIGHTING for the region.  I am not only able to
> call `exchange-point-and-mark' (which I invoke with `C-x C-x'), which
> tells me the region continues to exist, but the highlighting
> reappears.

I've always found this behavior confusing.  To keep the mark, that's  
fine and desirable (to do things like C-x C-x), but re-activating the  
region seems odd.

Jason Rumney wrote:

> Here's a possible idea: enable delete-selection-mode by default
> but only after shift-selection and mouse-selection.

This would be great if highlighting serves as indication to the user.   
That is, enable delete-selection-mode by default if and only if the  
region is highlighted.  Without the highlighting, you'd introduce an  
additional invisible mode, which is bad UI design.