Re: Copy/paste issue.

[Barry Margolin <barmar@alum.mit.edu>]

In article <jq19dp$1pj$4@reader1.panix.com>,
 dkcombs@panix.com (David Combs) wrote:

> In article <mailman.731.1336377127.855.help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org>,
> Yaoyuan  <yaoyuan0329@gmail.com> wrote:
> >-=-=-=-=-=-
> >
> >oh.. I like it, the delete-selection-mode. it has the same behaviour with 
> >other editors. thanks David
> >
> >Thanks
> >YaoYuan
> >
> 
> Well, emacs is what I use 99% of the time, other than vi (or :Q --> ex).
> 
> So I'm not really too sure just what everyone's talking about, even in
> followups to my question.

The basic idea is that if you mark a region before performing an 
operation that would normally insert or delete something, you're 
indicating that you really wanted to replace the region with it.

It's pretty much the way almost every traditional GUI text editor or 
word processor works.  If all you've ever used have been Unix 
character-oriented text editors, then you won't recognize the behavior.

You asked for the "uses" of this mode, and it's mainly just to act like 
other applications that most people have become used to.

Here's an example.  If you want to cut or copy region-1, then use it to 
replace region-2, you'd normally have to do one of the following:

Mark region-2
C-w
Mark region-1
C-w or M-w
Go back to where region-2 used to be
C-y

or

Mark region-1
C-w or M-w
Mark region-2
C-w
C-y M-y or C-2 C-y

With delete-selection-mode, you can simplify it:

Mark region-1
C-w or M-w
Mark region-2
C-y

-- 
Barry Margolin, barmar@alum.mit.edu
Arlington, MA
*** PLEASE post questions in newsgroups, not directly to me ***