Re: The X window system, yanking, and pasting using the mouse

[David De La Harpe Golden <david@harpegolden.net>]

On 28/01/11 19:59, Stefan Monnier wrote:
>> really what the option is all about IIUC.  Please rename the option.  One
>> possible name is `autocopy-active-region-to-primary': a copy is made
>> automatically, from the active region to the primary selection.
>
> That sounds like a good idea.
>

I'm certainly not averse to renaming it if people are happy to use the 
x11-specific terminology "[[window] system] primary" and "[[window] 
system] clipboard" instead of more neutral "[[window] system] 
selection", "[[window] system] clipboard" terminology.

I did /suggest/ renaming some years ago owing to various confusions (and 
despite the fact it is demonstrably commonplace to refer to primary as 
"the" selection here in x11 land, it after all conventionally holds the 
most recently selected text - we see that in apps from KDE klipper to 
GNUstep's pasteboard daemon...)

Care must be taken to layer the api, though, just because it's being 
referred to as "primary" doesn't mean you should short-circuit /asking 
the backend/ to update the system primary like you ask it to update the 
system clipboard. The x11 backend implementation would then update the 
primary x11-selection and the ns backend implementation the 'Selection' 
pasteboard.

"autocopy" may be oversimplified given the lazy nature of the protocol 
involved on some platforms, though user-visible behaviour is such that 
it doesn't matter all that much. "map" might be a alternative that 
glosses over the lazy vs. eager issues of the different platforms if you 
want an explicit verb at all e.g.

map-emacs-active-region-to-system-primary
or just emacs-active-region-to-system-primary
  - explicit

map-active-region-to-system-primary
or just active-region-to-system-primary
  - after all, you don't encounter "active region" outside emacs jargon.

map-active-region-to-primary
or just active-region-to-primary
- Short, but primary isn't rightly considered an emacs-level entity 
(even if it is emulated internally by emacs on some platforms), so I 
kind of like having "system" in there.

(see, we'll likely eventually also want a
map-active-region-to-system-clipboard
for people who like that sort of thing, previously referred to as 
"clipboard-active-regions", especially since w32 doesn't have a
system-primary)