Subject: bug#14225: [PATCH] Winner mode fails to run mark activation and deactivation hooks

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 18 Apr 2013 09:15:11 -0400

> Notice that the cursor type is now a bar, not a block. It should be a block.
> The attached winnerbug.patch fixes it.

Thanks.  I installed a slightly different patch which uses higher-level
functions instead.

> BTW, by default in Emacs, when the region is active but empty, there's no
> visual indication of this status. Neither is there indication of the active
> region if point is one less than mark and blink-cursor-mode is off. Also, if
> point is greater than mark, the active region is highlighted, but the block
> cursor does an inverse-video highlight of the character following the
> region, which (speaking from experience) an Emacs newbie finds distracting,
> since it seems to indicate that that character is also part of the
> region. Setting the cursor type to bar when the region is active solves all
> those problems, and I recommend it as the default for Emacs.

I'd never thought about it, but it does sound like a good idea.
This said, I see two problems with it:
- we'll probably bump into more bugs along the lines of this one
  (should all be fixable, but).
- every once will be exposed to this change, and someone out there is
  bound to dislike it.
So could you send a separate email about it to emacs-devel?  No need to
participate in the ensuing flamewar, but it's important to let people
use their flamethrowers to "let it out" ;-)

        Stefan

=== modified file 'lisp/ChangeLog'
--- lisp/ChangeLog	2013-04-18 06:24:10 +0000
+++ lisp/ChangeLog	2013-04-18 13:08:17 +0000
@@ -1,3 +1,10 @@
+2013-04-18  Stefan Monnier  <[email-masked]>
+
+	* winner.el (winner-active-region): Use region-active-p, activate-mark
+	and deactivate-mark (bug#14225).
+
+	* simple.el (deactivate-mark): Don't inline it.
+
 2013-04-18  Tassilo Horn  <[email-masked]>
 
 	* files.el (auto-mode-alist): Delete OpenDocument and StarOffice

=== modified file 'lisp/simple.el'
--- lisp/simple.el	2013-04-18 00:12:33 +0000
+++ lisp/simple.el	2013-04-18 13:05:44 +0000
@@ -4177,7 +4177,7 @@
       (marker-position (mark-marker))
     (signal 'mark-inactive nil)))
 
-(defsubst deactivate-mark (&optional force)
+(defun deactivate-mark (&optional force)
   "Deactivate the mark.
 If Transient Mark mode is disabled, this function normally does
 nothing; but if FORCE is non-nil, it deactivates the mark anyway.

=== modified file 'lisp/winner.el'
--- lisp/winner.el	2013-01-01 09:11:05 +0000
+++ lisp/winner.el	2013-04-18 13:04:51 +0000
@@ -45,10 +45,8 @@
                         (if (featurep 'xemacs)
                             `(if ,store (zmacs-activate-region)
                                (zmacs-deactivate-region))
-                          `(setq mark-active ,store)))))
-  (if (boundp 'mark-active)
-      mark-active
-    (region-active-p)))
+                          `(if ,store (activate-mark) (deactivate-mark))))))
+  (region-active-p))
 
 (defalias 'winner-edges
   (if (featurep 'xemacs) 'window-pixel-edges 'window-edges))