RE: Selection changes

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> Chong Yidong <cyd@stupidchicken.com> writes:
> > But I think select-active-regions needs further 
> > improvement.  Perhaps its default behavior should be as
> > follows: for an active region created using
> > shift-selection or mouse dragging, Emacs supplies the 
> > region text to primary.  When such a region is
> > deactivated, Emacs disowns primary (as some other apps
> > do, tho not Firefox).  For an active region created
> > simply with C-SPC, no special x-selection handling should 
> > be performed.
> 
> I don't like things that make selections magic depending on how they
> were selected; it just makes the interface more confusing and
> discourages people from learning new commands.
> 
> A selection should be a selection, to the greatest extent possible
> (there are some exceptions, like shift-selections auto-deselecting,
> but that's much less confusing because it's an immediate and visually
> obvious effect, and fits people's shift-select muscle-memory).

I agree with Miles about that.

I'll go further, on a different angle.  I disagree with a change to the default
behavior of selection/kill/copy/yank (with the mouse or keyboard).  Period.  

The latest build I have of Emacs is completely broken wrt yanking with mouse-2 -
see bugs 6689, 6694, 6701,....  I have not paid attention to this thread, but I
cannot ignore a blown-away mouse.

I don't know what problem you all think you're trying to fix, but AFAICT nothing
needs fixing wrt select/kill/copy/yank, whether via keys or mouse.  It ain't
broke, so please stop trying to fix it.  I use the kill ring, primary selection,
and secondary selection all the time, and they all work just fine, thank you
very much - both within Emacs and between it and other apps.  Or they did until
recently.

There are so many real bugs that need fixing - many with solutions already
provided.  Why not start there, if you have the time and energy to fiddle?

If you want to provide an optional (opt-in), _alternative_ behavior for
select/kill/copy/yank (mouse or keyboard or both), then fine - go for it.  Bring
that up here as a _proposal_, to be discussed.  No problem.  Normal.

But no such a change should be made to the _default_ behavior.  I cannot
understand how such changes are made willy nilly, without any real discussion.
That's not the way Emacs development should proceed.

When someone does propose a change here, it can be nigh unto impossible to get
any agreement and the final OK for it.  I understand that very well, believe me.
But that does not mean that having commit access is a license to make whatever
changes you like.  And that applies to everyone, or it should.

It's not kosher to avoid full proposal & discussion and just implement whatever
you think is right.  That doesn't respect the community, and it's not good
development practice that leads to a good product.

Just one opinion, of course.