Re: how to highlight the mark

[Oliver Scholz]

Wim Yedema <yedema@natlab.research.philips.com> writes:

> Subject says it all really.  I want to highlight the mark kind of like 
> the cursor.

Barely tested:

(defvar wy-mark-overlay nil)
(make-variable-buffer-local 'wy-mark-overlay)

(defun wy-move-mark-overlay (pos)
  (move-overlay wy-mark-overlay pos (1+ pos)))

(define-minor-mode wy-highlight-mark-mode
  "Minor mode to highlight the mark."
  nil "wy-mark " nil
  (cond (wy-highlight-mark-mode
         ;; Turn mode on.
         (setq wy-mark-overlay (make-overlay (mark) (1+ (mark))))
         (overlay-put wy-mark-overlay 'face 'highlight))
        (t
         ;; Turn mode off.
         (delete-overlay wy-mark-overlay)
         (setq wy-mark-overlay nil))))

(defadvice set-mark (after wy-highlight-mark activate)
  (when wy-highlight-mark-mode
    (wy-move-mark-overlay (mark))))

It doesn't work well at the end of a line and at `point-max',
though.  I believe that would require hacking the display engine.
You are probably better off using `transient-mark-mode'.

    Oliver
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