Re: master 370d403: Explain in the manual how to make `cursor-intangible' work

[Stefan Monnier]

Lars Ingebrigtsen [2021-11-14 19:39:35] wrote:
> Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:
>> Note that in your example of 5 X where you want the cursor to be able to
>> jump from "just before XXXXX" to "just after XXXXX", your 5 X are not
>> "intangible" since you can jump from before to after (you might call
>> them "atomic" maybe, but "intangible" doesn't seem quite right).
>
> I don't think I was the one who called this `cursor-intangible', was it?
> People use it to make the cursor skip in fun ways, but `intangible' is
> an odd name for it.

If you read my description carefully, you'll see that the text marked
with `cursor-intangible` is indeed intangible.  It's only when you want
it to be "atomic" that you need to do something funny (like place the
`cursor-intangible` on all-but-one char).  So I think "intangible" is
not a bad choice (tho, indeed, it's a largely accidental/historical
name inherited from the deprecated `intangible` property).

> Yes there is.  See bug#51095 for somebody who's understandably confused
> about what it all means.

Agreed.  But I think your code example just makes it seem like the
current behavior is just wrong, whereas the problem is that it
implements something a bit different from what the OP wanted.
So I think we should better explain our meaning of "intangible" and then
explain how it might relate to a notion of "atomicity" (and how to get
that when you want it).


        Stefan