Re: Question about copy-region-as-kill

[Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org>]

It might be possible to divide all major modes into a few named
categories, such that we could design a reasonable plan for what to do
with text props on copying of text, given the category of the buffer
being copied from and the category of the buffer being copied to.

Here is a starting list of categories:

A. Buffers where properties are determined from the characters.
(E.g., programming language mode using font-lock, Rmail, and Info.)

B. Buffers where properties are put on by Lisp code but can't be
determined from the characters.  (E.g., the minibuffer, the output
of list-faces-display, and Shell mode).

C. Buffers which should have no text properties.
(E.g., programming language mode without font-lock).

D. Buffers where properties can be assigned by users.
(E.g., Enriched mode, and maybe Fundamental mode).

Perhaps all text properties should be discarded when copying into
buffers of categories A, B and C.  But what should be done with images
copied into these buffers?

Perhaps certain specific properties should be discarded when
copying into category D buffers.

Are any more alternative categories or subdivisions of them needed?