Re: Transient Mark Mode on by default

[Thomas Lord <lord@emf.net>]

Back when people more often disagreed about what
backspace characters should mean, keyboard translation
maps helped a lot.

Here is an idea that might be simple and clean:

Let's pretend that there are three special keys on every keyboard.
These are named COPY, PASTE, and CUT.

Well, actually, on real keyboards there is no way to type those
but, through the magic of key translation, users can assign those
keys wherever they like.   So, put CUT on C-x and put C-x on F1,
say.

That doesn't give a "modal" system where sometimes C-v means
scroll-down and other times it means PASTE.   But it gives a simple
way to make those keys work how users expect with the side effect
that if a user (who has remapped those keys) types, say, C-H C-v
the system says "PASTE is bound yank [or whatever]".

Emacs documentation will still be saying things like "Use C-x f to
open a file."    That's a burden on new users who elect to remap
C-x to CUT (and some other key to C-x).    But it's a small burden
because it's just those few keys and the rules about how to type those
characters apply consistently, all the time.

-t


Richard Stallman wrote:
> Shift-selection is fine, but I don't think we should change the
> meaning of C-c, C-v and C-x.
>
> All else being equal, it would be better to be compatible with other
> programs, including in this.  But all else is not equal, and this
> change would not fit into Emacs.
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