Subject: bug#76769: 31.0.50; marking inconsistency between VC-Dir and dired-vc-next-action

From: Sean Whitton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Mar 2025 15:30:25 +0800

Hello,

On Sat 15 Mar 2025 at 03:18am +02, Dmitry Gutov wrote:

> On 14/03/2025 05:41, Sean Whitton wrote:
>
>> - When you try to mark a file but you can't because the directory is
>>    already marked, unmark the directory first.
>
> That one sounds a little odd, doesn't it? Marking something would be expected
> to extend the set of files acted upon, and here it the opposite.

I see what you mean, but I'd argue it's still the most useful behaviour,
especially after a confirmation prompt -- I'll make it clear what's
going to happen in the prompt, e.g. "Unmark this directory in order to
mark this single file?"

To put it another way, why would you want to mark that file if the
directory is already marked?  Either it's an error, and you can just say
'n' to the prompt, or it's deliberate and it's because you want to mark
that file for your next operation, whether or not you've noticed that
you need to unmark the directory first.

-- 
Sean Whitton