Selection not to be copied into kill-ring

Selection not to be copied into kill-ring

[Will]

Hi,

I'd like to copy text from external applications (e.g. web browser) to 
an Emacs buffer. Often before I paste the text into an Emacs buffer I'd 
like to delete text in the this buffer _without_ it being copied to the 
kill-ring, because then the text from the external application gets lost.

=> How do I switch off that hightlighted text is copied automatially 
into the kill-ring?
=> How do I delete a region without it getting copied into the 
kill-ring, e.g. by highlighting the text and pressing <delete>?

Thanks in advance,

Will

PS: I am working with
GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2007-06-02 on RELEASE
with MS Windows XP.

Re: Selection not to be copied into kill-ring

[weber]

On 12 jul, 09:14, Will <schimpan...@gmx.de> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> I'd like to copy text from external applications (e.g. web browser) to
> an Emacs buffer. Often before I paste the text into an Emacs buffer I'd
> like to delete text in the this buffer _without_ it being copied to the
> kill-ring, because then the text from the external application gets lost.
>
> => How do I switch off that hightlighted text is copied automatially
> into the kill-ring?
> => How do I delete a region without it getting copied into the
> kill-ring, e.g. by highlighting the text and pressing <delete>?
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Will
>
> PS: I am working with
> GNU Emacs 22.1.1 (i386-mingw-nt5.1.2600) of 2007-06-02 on RELEASE
> with MS Windows XP.

There is another command, delete-region, that doesn't copy to the kill
ring.
You could bind it to delete like this:

(define-key global-map (kbd "<delete>")    'delete-region)

HTH,
weber

Re: Selection not to be copied into kill-ring

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Will <schimpanski@gmx.de>
> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:14:01 +0200
> 
> I'd like to copy text from external applications (e.g. web browser) to 
> an Emacs buffer. Often before I paste the text into an Emacs buffer I'd 
> like to delete text in the this buffer _without_ it being copied to the 
> kill-ring, because then the text from the external application gets lost.
> 
> => How do I switch off that hightlighted text is copied automatially 
> into the kill-ring?
> => How do I delete a region without it getting copied into the 
> kill-ring, e.g. by highlighting the text and pressing <delete>?

Try "M-x delete-selection-mode RET".  Is this what you want?

Re: Selection not to be copied into kill-ring

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 12.07.2007 um 14:14 schrieb Will:

> => How do I switch off that hightlighted text is copied  
> automatially into the kill-ring?

Do not mark it with the mouse. This mode has side-effects ...

> => How do I delete a region without it getting copied into the kill- 
> ring, e.g. by highlighting the text and pressing <delete>?

Mark without mouse, then delete-region.


I think you would need to change the bindings of <down-mouse-1> and  
<mouse-1>, which isn't easy because both events can run different  
functions depending on the context (for example mouse-drag-region) ...

--
Mit friedvollen Grüßen

   Pete

Macht kaputt, was Afghanistan kaputt macht!

Saving the selection before killing (was: Selection not to be copied into kill-ring)

[Stefan Monnier]

>>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>> From: Will <schimpanski@gmx.de>
>> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
>> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:14:01 +0200
>> 
>> I'd like to copy text from external applications (e.g. web browser) to 
>> an Emacs buffer. Often before I paste the text into an Emacs buffer I'd 
>> like to delete text in the this buffer _without_ it being copied to the 
>> kill-ring, because then the text from the external application gets lost.
>> 
>> => How do I switch off that hightlighted text is copied automatially 
>> into the kill-ring?
>> => How do I delete a region without it getting copied into the 
>> kill-ring, e.g. by highlighting the text and pressing <delete>?

> Try "M-x delete-selection-mode RET".  Is this what you want?

I bump into the OP's problem every once in a while, but I don't like
delete-selection-mode for some reason, so I use the patch below instead.
What it does is that when you kill text, before doing the kill (which will
replace the current X-selection with the killed text), we save the current
selection on the kill-ring (only if it doesn't come from us, of course
since otherwise it's already in the kill-ring).  So I can simply do my kill
and then C-y (which re-inserts what I just killed) and M-y (which replaces
the text with the previous X-selection).

This feature is pretty unnoticeable, so I'm tempted to install it just like
that, but maybe people want yet-another-config-var to control it?


        Stefan


--- orig/lisp/simple.el
+++ mod/lisp/simple.el
@@ -2479,6 +2536,20 @@
 argument is not used by `insert-for-yank'.  However, since Lisp code
 may access and use elements from the kill ring directly, the STRING
 argument should still be a \"useful\" string for such uses."
+  ;; To better pretend that X-selection = head-of-kill-ring, we copy other
+  ;; application's X-selection to the kill-ring.  This comes in handy when
+  ;; you do something like:
+  ;; - copy a piece of text in your web-browser.
+  ;; - have to do some editing (including killing) before you can yank
+  ;;   that text.
+  ;; Note: this piece of code inspired from current-kill.
+  (let ((paste (and interprogram-paste-function
+                    (funcall interprogram-paste-function))))
+    (when paste
+      (let ((interprogram-cut-function nil)
+            (interprogram-paste-function nil))
+        (kill-new paste))))
+  ;; The actual kill-new functionality.
   (if (> (length string) 0)
       (if yank-handler
 	  (put-text-property 0 (length string)

Re: Saving the selection before killing

[David Kastrup]

Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca> writes:

>>> From: Will <schimpanski@gmx.de>
>>> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
>>> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:14:01 +0200
>>> 
>>> I'd like to copy text from external applications (e.g. web
>>> browser) to an Emacs buffer. Often before I paste the text into an
>>> Emacs buffer I'd like to delete text in the this buffer _without_
>>> it being copied to the kill-ring, because then the text from the
>>> external application gets lost.
>
> I bump into the OP's problem every once in a while, but I don't like
> delete-selection-mode for some reason, so I use the patch below
> instead.  What it does is that when you kill text, before doing the
> kill (which will replace the current X-selection with the killed
> text), we save the current selection on the kill-ring (only if it
> doesn't come from us, of course since otherwise it's already in the
> kill-ring).  So I can simply do my kill and then C-y (which
> re-inserts what I just killed) and M-y (which replaces the text with
> the previous X-selection).
>
> This feature is pretty unnoticeable, so I'm tempted to install it
> just like that, but maybe people want yet-another-config-var to
> control it?

The problem I see is that it is pretty unnoticeable iff the size of
the selection is small compared to the network bandwidth.  It would be
nicest if Emacs could tell the X server "if someone asks for a
selection, tell me, and then I'll tell you whether I'll hand over a
selection, or whether you can ask the one who has it now for it."

I don't know the X protocols to know whether this is feasible with
regard to the network traffic.  It might be infeasible due to
program's expectations about the kill ring, anyway.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum

Re: Saving the selection before killing

[Will]

Hi, Stefan,

thanks for helping. However, I couldn't make your code work. I saved 
it an extra library and loaded it with "require" after adding some 
missing brackets, provide command etc.

When I evaluate

    (if (> (length string) 0)
        (if yank-handler
  	  (put-text-property 0 (length string)  )))

it still get errors like:

Debugger entered--Lisp error: (void-variable string)
   (length string)
   (> (length string) 0)
   (if (> (length string) 0) (if yank-handler (put-text-property 0 ...)))
   eval((if (> (length string) 0) (if yank-handler (put-text-property 0 
...))))
   eval-last-sexp-1(nil)
   eval-last-sexp(nil)
   call-interactively(eval-last-sexp)

Best,

Will

Stefan Monnier skrev:
>>>>>> "Eli" == Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
>>> From: Will <schimpanski@gmx.de>
>>> Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
>>> Date: Thu, 12 Jul 2007 14:14:01 +0200
>>>
>>> I'd like to copy text from external applications (e.g. web browser) to 
>>> an Emacs buffer. Often before I paste the text into an Emacs buffer I'd 
>>> like to delete text in the this buffer _without_ it being copied to the 
>>> kill-ring, because then the text from the external application gets lost.
>>>
>>> => How do I switch off that hightlighted text is copied automatially 
>>> into the kill-ring?
>>> => How do I delete a region without it getting copied into the 
>>> kill-ring, e.g. by highlighting the text and pressing <delete>?
> 
>> Try "M-x delete-selection-mode RET".  Is this what you want?
> 
> I bump into the OP's problem every once in a while, but I don't like
> delete-selection-mode for some reason, so I use the patch below instead.
> What it does is that when you kill text, before doing the kill (which will
> replace the current X-selection with the killed text), we save the current
> selection on the kill-ring (only if it doesn't come from us, of course
> since otherwise it's already in the kill-ring).  So I can simply do my kill
> and then C-y (which re-inserts what I just killed) and M-y (which replaces
> the text with the previous X-selection).
> 
> This feature is pretty unnoticeable, so I'm tempted to install it just like
> that, but maybe people want yet-another-config-var to control it?
> 
> 
>         Stefan
> 
> 
> --- orig/lisp/simple.el
> +++ mod/lisp/simple.el
> @@ -2479,6 +2536,20 @@
>  argument is not used by `insert-for-yank'.  However, since Lisp code
>  may access and use elements from the kill ring directly, the STRING
>  argument should still be a \"useful\" string for such uses."
> +  ;; To better pretend that X-selection = head-of-kill-ring, we copy other
> +  ;; application's X-selection to the kill-ring.  This comes in handy when
> +  ;; you do something like:
> +  ;; - copy a piece of text in your web-browser.
> +  ;; - have to do some editing (including killing) before you can yank
> +  ;;   that text.
> +  ;; Note: this piece of code inspired from current-kill.
> +  (let ((paste (and interprogram-paste-function
> +                    (funcall interprogram-paste-function))))
> +    (when paste
> +      (let ((interprogram-cut-function nil)
> +            (interprogram-paste-function nil))
> +        (kill-new paste))))
> +  ;; The actual kill-new functionality.
>    (if (> (length string) 0)
>        (if yank-handler
>  	  (put-text-property 0 (length string)