bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Giah de Barag]

* SUMMARY

Drag and drop does not work in Emacs version 29 on macOS.


* DESCRIPTION

- Drag and drop does NOT work on Emacs 29 on macOS. (Drag
  and drop DOES work in Emacs < 28. Upgrading to v29 makes
  drag and drop stop working.)

- If we do M-x describe-key then drag and drop a file on the
  text area of the window, we get
  - nothing -- in Emacs 29
  - a spurious message -- in Emacs 28
  - a normal message -- in Emacs 26


* USE CASE 1

- App: Emacs 29.x
  1. emacs -Q
  2. drag and drop a file from macOS Finder to Emacs

** EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

  3. file should open in Emacs

** ACTUAL BEHAVIOR

  3. NOTHING HAPPENS

  |-------+---------------------|
  | Emacs | Drag-n-Drop         |
  |-------+---------------------|
  |  29.3 | NOTHING HAPPENS     |
  |  28.2 | drag-and-drop works |
  |  26.3 | drag-and-drop works |
  |-------+---------------------|


* USE CASE 2

  1. M-x describe-key
  2. Drag and drop a file from Finder to Emacs

** EXPECTED BEHAVIOR

  3. should receive an informative message like
     “<drag-n-drop> ... runs ... ns-drag-n-drop ...”

** ACTUAL BEHAVIOR

  3. Results below. Regarding v28, even though drag-and-drop
     itself works fine in v28, we get this spurious
     “position not in text area” message. It is spurious
     because we indeed drag and drop the file into the text
     area.

  |-------+---------------------------------------------|
  | Emacs | ACTUAL BEHAVIOR                             |
  |-------+---------------------------------------------|
  |  26.3 | “<drag-n-drop> ... runs ... ns-drag-n-drop” |
  |  28.2 | “Position not in text area of window”       |
  |  29.3 | NOTHING HAPPENS                             |
  |-------+---------------------------------------------|


--
In GNU Emacs 29.3 (build 1, x86_64-apple-darwin18.7.0, NS appkit-1671.60
Version 10.14.6 (Build 18G9323)) of 2024-03-24 built on
builder10-14.lan
Windowing system distributor 'Apple', version 10.3.2113
System Description:  macOS 12.7.5

Configured using:
'configure --with-ns '--enable-locallisppath=/Library/Application
Support/Emacs/${version}/site-lisp:/Library/Application
Support/Emacs/site-lisp' --with-modules 'CFLAGS=-DFD_SETSIZE=10000
-DDARWIN_UNLIMITED_SELECT' --with-x-toolkit=no'

Configured features:
ACL GLIB GMP GNUTLS JPEG JSON LIBXML2 MODULES NOTIFY KQUEUE NS PDUMPER
PNG RSVG SQLITE3 THREADS TIFF TOOLKIT_SCROLL_BARS TREE_SITTER ZLIB

Important settings:
value of $LC_ALL: en_US.UTF-8
value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix

Major mode: Org

Minor modes in effect:
ruler-mode: t
windmove-mode: t
moom-mode: t
display-time-mode: t
electric-pair-mode: t
global-auto-revert-mode: t
delete-selection-mode: t
adaptive-wrap-prefix-mode: t
smart-quotes-mode: t
tooltip-mode: t
global-eldoc-mode: t
show-paren-mode: t
electric-indent-mode: t
mouse-wheel-mode: t
menu-bar-mode: t
file-name-shadow-mode: t
global-font-lock-mode: t
font-lock-mode: t
blink-cursor-mode: t
size-indication-mode: t
column-number-mode: t
line-number-mode: t
global-visual-line-mode: t
visual-line-mode: t
transient-mark-mode: t
auto-composition-mode: t
auto-encryption-mode: t
auto-compression-mode: t

Load-path shadows:
/Applications/Emacs.app/Contents/Resources/lisp/progmodes/csharp-mode hides /Volumes/Data/Share/Users/Telfeyan/roland/.emacs.d/lisp/csharp-mode/csharp-mode

Features:
(macros misearch multi-isearch ruler-mode mhtml-mode css-mode smie color
js c-ts-common treesit imenu cc-mode cc-fonts cc-guess cc-menus cc-cmds
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nxml-ns nxml-enc xmltok nxml-util ox-latex ox-icalendar org-agenda
ox-html table ox-ascii ox-publish ox shortdoc help-fns radix-tree
dired-aux display-line-numbers vc-git diff-mode vc-dispatcher vc-svn
org-element org-persist org-id org-refile avl-tree generator oc-basic
ol-eww eww xdg url-queue mm-url ol-rmail ol-mhe ol-irc ol-info ol-gnus
nnselect gnus-art mm-uu mml2015 mm-view mml-smime smime gnutls dig
gnus-sum shr pixel-fill kinsoku url-file svg dom browse-url url
url-proxy url-privacy url-expand url-methods url-history url-cookie
generate-lisp-file url-domsuf url-util url-parse auth-source eieio
eieio-core json map url-vars gnus-group gnus-undo gnus-start gnus-dbus
dbus xml gnus-cloud nnimap nnmail mail-source utf7 nnoo parse-time
gnus-spec gnus-int gnus-range gnus-win gnus nnheader range ol-docview
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electric uniquify ediff-hook vc-hooks lisp-float-type elisp-mode mwheel
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fontset image regexp-opt fringe tabulated-list replace newcomment
text-mode lisp-mode prog-mode register page tab-bar menu-bar rfn-eshadow
isearch easymenu timer select scroll-bar mouse jit-lock font-lock syntax
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Memory information:
((conses 16 338938 56281)
(symbols 48 29248 4)
(strings 32 106691 6366)
(string-bytes 1 3439476)
(vectors 16 60208)
(vector-slots 8 1414280 148312)
(floats 8 482 287)
(intervals 56 6438 1265)
(buffers 984 16))

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Po Lu via Bug reports for GNU Emacs, the Swiss army knife of text editors]

Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> writes:

> * SUMMARY
>
> Drag and drop does not work in Emacs version 29 on macOS.
>
>
> * DESCRIPTION
>
> - Drag and drop does NOT work on Emacs 29 on macOS. (Drag
>   and drop DOES work in Emacs < 28. Upgrading to v29 makes
>   drag and drop stop working.)
>
> - If we do M-x describe-key then drag and drop a file on the
>   text area of the window, we get
>   - nothing -- in Emacs 29

Since I cannot reproduce this in GNUstep on Emacs 30, this has either
been dealt with in the release branch, or is specific to Mac OS.

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Giah de Barag]

On Jul 9, 2024, at 02:29, Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> writes:
> 
>> * SUMMARY
>> 
>> Drag and drop does not work in Emacs version 29 on macOS.
>> 
>> * DESCRIPTION
>> 
>> - Drag and drop does NOT work on Emacs 29 on macOS. (Drag
>>   and drop DOES work in Emacs < 28. Upgrading to v29 makes
>>   drag and drop stop working.)
>> 
>> - If we do M-x describe-key then drag and drop a file on the
>>   text area of the window, we get -- nothing -- in Emacs 29
> 
> Since I cannot reproduce this in GNUstep on Emacs 30, this has either
> been dealt with in the release branch, or is specific to Mac OS

Who maintains the macOS-specific code?

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:08:03 -0400, Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> said:

    Giah> On Jul 9, 2024, at 02:29, Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> wrote:
    >> Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> writes:
    >> 
    >>> * SUMMARY
    >>> 
    >>> Drag and drop does not work in Emacs version 29 on macOS.
    >>> 
    >>> * DESCRIPTION
    >>> 
    >>> - Drag and drop does NOT work on Emacs 29 on macOS. (Drag
    >>> and drop DOES work in Emacs < 28. Upgrading to v29 makes
    >>> drag and drop stop working.)
    >>> 
    >>> - If we do M-x describe-key then drag and drop a file on the
    >>> text area of the window, we get -- nothing -- in Emacs 29
    >> 
    >> Since I cannot reproduce this in GNUstep on Emacs 30, this has either
    >> been dealt with in the release branch, or is specific to Mac OS

    Giah> Who maintains the macOS-specific code?

Drag and drop works fine for me on macOS with Emacs 29.3 and
master. Is this one of those 'apps need permission to access folders'
security things that pops up every once in a while on macOS?

Robert
-- 

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Giah De Barag]

On Jul 11, 2024, at 10:23, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> wrote:

>>>>>> On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:08:03 -0400, Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> said:
> 
>    Giah> On Jul 9, 2024, at 02:29, Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>>> Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> writes:
>>> 
>>>> * SUMMARY
>>>> 
>>>> Drag and drop does not work in Emacs version 29 on macOS.
>>>> 
>>>> * DESCRIPTION
>>>> 
>>>> - Drag and drop does NOT work on Emacs 29 on macOS. (Drag
>>>> and drop DOES work in Emacs < 28. Upgrading to v29 makes
>>>> drag and drop stop working.)
>>>> 
>>>> - If we do M-x describe-key then drag and drop a file on the
>>>> text area of the window, we get -- nothing -- in Emacs 29
>>> 
>>> Since I cannot reproduce this in GNUstep on Emacs 30, this has either
>>> been dealt with in the release branch, or is specific to Mac OS
> 
>    Giah> Who maintains the macOS-specific code?
> 
> Drag and drop works fine for me on macOS with Emacs 29.3 and
> master. Is this one of those 'apps need permission to access folders'
> security things that pops up every once in a while on macOS?
> 
> Robert
> --

Thank you for that suggestion. However, there is no error message. It just silently does not work. Search for the string "NOTHING HAPPENS" in my bug report. Also note that rolling back to Emacs 28 or going to a more recent macOS makes drag and drop work.

What other reasons could we think of, to explain why Emacs 29 drag and drop does not work in macOS 12, an OS that is only three years old, still supported and updated, and still widely used?

macOS 12 | Emacs 28 | works
macOS 12 | Emacs 29 | does not work
macOS 14 | Emacs 28 | works
macOS 14 | Emacs 29 | works

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Stefan Kangas]

Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> writes:

>>>>>> On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 09:08:03 -0400, Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> said:
>
>     Giah> On Jul 9, 2024, at 02:29, Po Lu <luangruo@yahoo.com> wrote:
>     >> Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> writes:
>     >>
>     >>> * SUMMARY
>     >>>
>     >>> Drag and drop does not work in Emacs version 29 on macOS.
>     >>>
>     >>> * DESCRIPTION
>     >>>
>     >>> - Drag and drop does NOT work on Emacs 29 on macOS. (Drag
>     >>> and drop DOES work in Emacs < 28. Upgrading to v29 makes
>     >>> drag and drop stop working.)
>     >>>
>     >>> - If we do M-x describe-key then drag and drop a file on the
>     >>> text area of the window, we get -- nothing -- in Emacs 29
>     >>
>     >> Since I cannot reproduce this in GNUstep on Emacs 30, this has either
>     >> been dealt with in the release branch, or is specific to Mac OS
>
>     Giah> Who maintains the macOS-specific code?
>
> Drag and drop works fine for me on macOS with Emacs 29.3 and
> master. Is this one of those 'apps need permission to access folders'
> security things that pops up every once in a while on macOS?

The above recipe works for me too (the file opens) on macOS 14.5 in
emacs -Q, tested on master and Emacs 29.4.

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 14:42:21 -0400, Giah De Barag <gdb@crelg.com> said:

    Giah> Thank you for that suggestion. However, there is no error message. It
    Giah> just silently does not work. Search for the string "NOTHING HAPPENS"
    Giah> in my bug report. Also note that rolling back to Emacs 28 or going to
    Giah> a more recent macOS makes drag and drop work.

Ah, so this is Appleʼs fault 😉

    Giah> What other reasons could we think of, to explain why Emacs 29 drag and
    Giah> drop does not work in macOS 12, an OS that is only three years old,
    Giah> still supported and updated, and still widely used?

"Why does Apple change APIs so that they break drag and drop" is
another way of asking that question.

    Giah> macOS 12 | Emacs 28 | works
    Giah> macOS 12 | Emacs 29 | does not work
    Giah> macOS 14 | Emacs 28 | works
    Giah> macOS 14 | Emacs 29 | works

I donʼt have a macOS 12 machine, so I canʼt test. Alan, would you have
any ideas?

Robert
-- 

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Alan Third]

On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 10:35:04AM +0200, Robert Pluim wrote:
> >>>>> On Thu, 11 Jul 2024 14:42:21 -0400, Giah De Barag <gdb@crelg.com> said:
> 
>     Giah> Thank you for that suggestion. However, there is no error message. It
>     Giah> just silently does not work. Search for the string "NOTHING HAPPENS"
>     Giah> in my bug report. Also note that rolling back to Emacs 28 or going to
>     Giah> a more recent macOS makes drag and drop work.
> 
> Ah, so this is Appleʼs fault 😉

As always. ;)

>     Giah> macOS 12 | Emacs 28 | works
>     Giah> macOS 12 | Emacs 29 | does not work
>     Giah> macOS 14 | Emacs 28 | works
>     Giah> macOS 14 | Emacs 29 | works
> 
> I donʼt have a macOS 12 machine, so I canʼt test. Alan, would you have
> any ideas?

My Mac is still running 10.14 or something equally ancient, so I doubt
I'll be much help in diagnosing this, but it smells a little to me of
an incorrect #if statement somewhere.

-- 
Alan Third

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Robert Pluim]

>>>>> On Fri, 12 Jul 2024 10:14:21 +0100, Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> said:

    >> 
    >> I donʼt have a macOS 12 machine, so I canʼt test. Alan, would you have
    >> any ideas?

    Alan> My Mac is still running 10.14 or something equally ancient, so I doubt
    Alan> I'll be much help in diagnosing this, but it smells a little to me of
    Alan> an incorrect #if statement somewhere.

You mean the MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED? It looks like that
influences how Emacs interacts with the PasteBoard.

Giah, did you build your emacsen yourself? Or are these from homebrew
or similar?

Thanks

Robert
-- 

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Giah de Barag]

On Jul 12, 2024, at 08:29, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> wrote:

> You mean the MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED? It looks like
> that influences how Emacs interacts with the PasteBoard.
> 
> Giah, did you build your emacsen yourself? Or are these from
> homebrew or similar?
> 
> Thanks
> 
> Robert

Yes, these are from homebrew. Thanks.

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Giah de Barag]

On Jul 12, 2024, at 20:38, Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> wrote:

> On Jul 12, 2024, at 08:29, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> wrote:
> 
>> You mean the MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED? It looks like
>> that influences how Emacs interacts with the PasteBoard.
>> 
>> Giah, did you build your emacsen yourself? Or are these from
>> homebrew or similar?
>> 
>> Thanks
>> 
>> Robert
> 
> Yes, these are from homebrew. Thanks.

Sorry, I spoke too soon. These are all from emacsformacosx.com.

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Alan Third]

On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 08:46:11PM -0400, Giah de Barag wrote:
> On Jul 12, 2024, at 20:38, Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> wrote:
> 
> > On Jul 12, 2024, at 08:29, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> You mean the MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED? It looks like
> >> that influences how Emacs interacts with the PasteBoard.
> >> 
> >> Giah, did you build your emacsen yourself? Or are these from
> >> homebrew or similar?
> >> 
> >> Thanks
> >> 
> >> Robert
> > 
> > Yes, these are from homebrew. Thanks.
> 
> Sorry, I spoke too soon. These are all from emacsformacosx.com.

I'm not quite up to date on the status of the various macOS builds,
but it might be worth trying Jim's build:

    https://github.com/jimeh/emacs-builds

or try building it yourself.
-- 
Alan Third

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Giah de Barag]

On Jul 13, 2024, at 06:50, Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 08:46:11PM -0400, Giah de Barag wrote:
>> On Jul 12, 2024, at 20:38, Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> wrote:
>> 
>>> On Jul 12, 2024, at 08:29, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> wrote:
>>> 
>>>> You mean the MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED? It looks like
>>>> that influences how Emacs interacts with the PasteBoard.
>>>> 
>>>> Giah, did you build your emacsen yourself? Or are these from
>>>> homebrew or similar?
>>>> 
>>>> Thanks
>>>> 
>>>> Robert
>>> 
>>> Yes, these are from homebrew. Thanks.
>> 
>> Sorry, I spoke too soon. These are all from emacsformacosx.com.
> 
> I'm not quite up to date on the status of the various macOS builds,
> but it might be worth trying Jim's build:
> 
>    https://github.com/jimeh/emacs-builds
> 
> or try building it yourself.
> -- 
> Alan Third

In Jim’s build, yes, drag and drop works, but it still does this:

1. C-h k (describe-key)

2. Drag and drop something into the text
   area of the window.

3. Emacs incorrectly complains:
   "Position not in text area of window"

And PDF viewing is broken on Jim’s build (DocView complains “the pdf process exited abnormally”).

bug#72003: 29.3; Drag and drop in Emacs 29 on macOS

[Alan Third]

On Sat, Jul 13, 2024 at 03:49:48PM -0400, Giah de Barag wrote:
> On Jul 13, 2024, at 06:50, Alan Third <alan@idiocy.org> wrote:
> 
> > On Fri, Jul 12, 2024 at 08:46:11PM -0400, Giah de Barag wrote:
> >> On Jul 12, 2024, at 20:38, Giah de Barag <gdb@crelg.com> wrote:
> >> 
> >>> On Jul 12, 2024, at 08:29, Robert Pluim <rpluim@gmail.com> wrote:
> >>> 
> >>>> You mean the MAC_OS_X_VERSION_MIN_REQUIRED? It looks like
> >>>> that influences how Emacs interacts with the PasteBoard.
> >>>> 
> >>>> Giah, did you build your emacsen yourself? Or are these from
> >>>> homebrew or similar?
> >>>> 
> >>>> Thanks
> >>>> 
> >>>> Robert
> >>> 
> >>> Yes, these are from homebrew. Thanks.
> >> 
> >> Sorry, I spoke too soon. These are all from emacsformacosx.com.
> > 
> > I'm not quite up to date on the status of the various macOS builds,
> > but it might be worth trying Jim's build:
> > 
> >    https://github.com/jimeh/emacs-builds
> > 
> > or try building it yourself.
> 
> In Jim’s build, yes, drag and drop works, but it still does this:

Hmm, that makes me think that the issue is something to do with
David's build scripts for emacsformacosx.com. You could try reporting
it to him if you want. I think the bug reporting info is on the
website.

> 1. C-h k (describe-key)
> 
> 2. Drag and drop something into the text
>    area of the window.
> 
> 3. Emacs incorrectly complains:
>    "Position not in text area of window"

I'm not sure but you may have to drop into the minibuffer while using
describe-key.

> And PDF viewing is broken on Jim’s build (DocView complains “the pdf
> process exited abnormally”).

I'm not sure what's needed there. You could again try reporting it to
Jim directly.

The alternative is trying to build it yourself, which is actually
relatively easy if you're already using homebrew or macports.

Sorry for the long delay in replying.
-- 
Alan Third