emacs 24: select-active-regions behavior

emacs 24: select-active-regions behavior

[Enrico Scholz]

Hello,

after upgrading from Emacs-23 with pc-select-mode to Emacs-24 with its
builtin selection mode, I noticed some regressions.

Now with Emacs-24, a region which is selected by shift-<arrow-keys>
replaces the primary selection.  But with Emacs-23 I was able to:

1. copy something (select it + C-Ins),
2. shift-select another piece of text and 
3. replace this piece of text by Shift-Ins with the text from 1.

With Emacs-24 this is a noop because text from 2. will be inserted into
the primary selection and replaces itself in 3.


I was partly successful to restore old behavior by setting
select-active-regions to nil. Unfortunately, this breaks selection by
mouse.  E.g. with Emacs-23 I could double/triple click in a text and
paste it by middle click into another window.  Now with Emacs-24, I have
to copy it explicitly with C-Ins which is non-intuitive and breaks usual
X11 semantics.


Hence:  is there a way to configure Emacs-24 so that:

a) shift-select does not replace primary selection (e.g. as when using
   C-Space selection), and

b) a double/triple mouse click replaces the primary selection?



Enrico

Re: emacs 24: select-active-regions behavior

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Enrico Scholz <enrico.scholz@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de>
> Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2012 22:56:50 +0200
> 
> Now with Emacs-24, a region which is selected by shift-<arrow-keys>
> replaces the primary selection.  But with Emacs-23 I was able to:
> 
> 1. copy something (select it + C-Ins),
> 2. shift-select another piece of text and 
> 3. replace this piece of text by Shift-Ins with the text from 1.
> 
> With Emacs-24 this is a noop because text from 2. will be inserted into
> the primary selection and replaces itself in 3.

You can still do this:

 1. mark some text and type M-w, which puts the marked text into the
    clipboard (and the kill ring)
 2. shift-select another piece of text, and
 3. replace this piece of text by C-y

IOW, use the clipboard instead of the primary selection.

Re: emacs 24: select-active-regions behavior

[Enrico Scholz]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> IOW, use the clipboard instead of the primary selection.

that's not a solution; primary selection is mandatory because
e.g. xterm uses it when selecting text by mouse.


Enrico

Re: emacs 24: select-active-regions behavior

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Enrico Scholz <enrico.scholz@informatik.tu-chemnitz.de>
> Date: Wed, 06 Jun 2012 11:11:44 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > IOW, use the clipboard instead of the primary selection.
> 
> that's not a solution; primary selection is mandatory because
> e.g. xterm uses it when selecting text by mouse.

The idea of the new Emacs behavior is that you should put text in the
clipboard from xterm as well.  AFAIU, that's the "new wave" in
selection- and clipboard-related behavior on X.

etc/NEWS tells about these changes under "Selection changes", and also
describes how to get the old behavior back.  If the recipe there
doesn't fit the bill, please "M-x report-emacs-bug RET" with the
details.