RE: users and selection changes [was: Custom themes]

["Drew Adams" <drew.adams@oracle.com>]

> > We were told several times that users _would_ be able to 
> > get back exactly the pre-Emacs 24 selection behavior (at
> > least on Windows, and I thought everywhere), and that we
> > just had to wait patiently until the "wrinkles" were
> > "ironed" out and we would be told how.
> 
> That time has come and gone.  

Good to hear. So where's the explanation for users?

NEWS is incomplete and incorrect (see bugs #7196 & #7195).
I don't see it in the manuals either.

> I'm not aware of any problems with getting the old
> behavior back by customizing mouse-drag-copy-region.

Does that give exactly the same behavior as before?  On all platforms?

Yidong seems to have just said that that is impossible.

He also pointed out, in bug #6956, that there is now an inconsistency (same
inconsistency or another?) wrt mouse selection when `mouse-drag-copy-region' is
t:

YC> Any user who insists on changing mouse-drag-copy-region
YC> back to t can deal with the inconsistency.

If Yidong is wrong, and for all platforms it _is_ sufficient to customize
`mouse-drag-copy-region', then all that remains is to _document_:

(a) the changed default behavior
(b) how to restore the old behavior

Apparently the time has come.

> The only leftover I know about is your complain about the need to
> customize mouse-drag-copy-region.  

You are inventing.  I never complained about having to customize
`mouse-drag-copy-region'.  I have no problem using options to customize.  And I
explicitly said (in bug #6956) that setting `mouse-drag-copy-region' to t seems
sufficient for my personal use.

The point is that we need to document this change and let users know which
option(s) to use to get back the previous behavior (which Yidong seems to be
saying is not completely possible).

> If there are other problems left, please file specific bug reports.

From bug #6956: In previous Emacs releases on X Window, "Were users able to
mouse-select and mouse-paste between sessions without first copying to the kill
ring" (i.e. with nil `mouse-drag-copy-region')?  I don't know the answer.  If
yes, then that feature has apparently been lost (`mouse-drag-copy-region' was
previously a no-op MS Windows - it was effectively always t, so Windows never
had this feature).

Also from bug #6956: "If you can mouse-select+paste within an Emacs session
without affecting the kill ring, why shouldn't you be able to do that between
sessions? Seems natural, no?"  As you pointed out then, this is an enhancement
request if it was not already possible in X in previous releases.