select text without moving the point in graphical interface

select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Ernest Adrogué]

Hi,

one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I can
select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the same when
running in a graphical interface (GTK)?

Regards.

RE: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Drew Adams]

> one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I can
> select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the same when
> running in a graphical interface (GTK)?

yes

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Ernest Adrogué]

 8-12-2013, 11:11 (-0800); Drew Adams escriu:
> > one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I can
> > select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the same when
> > running in a graphical interface (GTK)?
> 
> yes

How?

RE: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Drew Adams]

> > > one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I can
> > > select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the same when
> > > running in a graphical interface (GTK)?
> >
> > yes
> 
> How?

How do you do it in Emacs in terminal mode?  Same way, I guess.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question.  Why don't you provide
a recipe of the behavior you are looking for, which you already
enjoy when "running emacs in a terminal"?

I thought you were asking whether you can ever select text in Emacs
without moving the cursor.  The answer to that is yes, you can
sometimes, and regardless of whether Emacs is in console mode or
uses a graphical interface.

An example: `C-M-SPC' selects the sexp that follows point, without
moving point.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Ernest Adrogué]

 8-12-2013, 12:24 (-0800); Drew Adams escriu:
> > > > one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I can
> > > > select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the same when
> > > > running in a graphical interface (GTK)?
> > >
> > > yes
> > 
> > How?
> 
> How do you do it in Emacs in terminal mode?  Same way, I guess.
> 
> Perhaps I'm misunderstanding your question.  Why don't you provide
> a recipe of the behavior you are looking for, which you already
> enjoy when "running emacs in a terminal"?
> 
> I thought you were asking whether you can ever select text in Emacs
> without moving the cursor.  The answer to that is yes, you can
> sometimes, and regardless of whether Emacs is in console mode or
> uses a graphical interface.
> 
> An example: `C-M-SPC' selects the sexp that follows point, without
> moving point.

Sorry, I wasn't specific enough. I meant selecting text using the mouse.

In a terminal, the mouse is independent from emacs and it doesn't interfere
with it in any perceivable way, except when I paste something with a middle
click.  I think it's the terminal program, and not emacs, who handles the
mouse inputs.

In a GUI, it doesn't work the same way - as soon as I click anywhere the
point moves to that location.  I was wondering if tweaking some options I
could make GUI emacs behave more or less like when it runs inside a
terminal.  For example, to be able to select text (using the X cursor)
without moving emacs's point in the process.

Regards.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Michael Heerdegen]

Hi Ernest,

> one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I can
> select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the same when
> running in a graphical interface (GTK)?

This is not possible with the default selection, since point is, by
definition, one border of the selection.

But what you describe sounds like a description of the secondary selection:

  (info "(emacs) Secondary Selection")


Michael.

RE: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Drew Adams]

> Sorry, I wasn't specific enough. I meant selecting text using the mouse.
> 
> In a terminal, the mouse is independent from emacs and it doesn't interfere
> with it in any perceivable way, except when I paste something with a middle
> click.  I think it's the terminal program, and not emacs, who handles the
> mouse inputs.

Yes.  The relevant doc is (emacs) `Text-Only Mouse', which explains
that only some text terminals support mouse clicks.

> In a GUI, it doesn't work the same way - as soon as I click anywhere the
> point moves to that location.  I was wondering if tweaking some options I
> could make GUI emacs behave more or less like when it runs inside a
> terminal.  For example, to be able to select text (using the X cursor)
> without moving emacs's point in the process.

Mouse selection in GUI Emacs is specifically for setting the region
to the selected text.  So no, to have `mouse-1' not set point you
would need to redefine a fair number of things.  In terminal mode,
Emacs does not even recognize the mouse, in the sense that if you do
`C-h k' and then click or drag the mouse, that action is unrecognized.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Ernest Adrogué]

 8-12-2013, 22:25 (+0100); Michael Heerdegen escriu:
> Hi Ernest,
> 
> > one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I can
> > select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the same when
> > running in a graphical interface (GTK)?
> 
> This is not possible with the default selection, since point is, by
> definition, one border of the selection.
> 
> But what you describe sounds like a description of the secondary selection:
> 
>   (info "(emacs) Secondary Selection")

Yeah, this is exactly it.  Now I guess the question is can I have the
secondary selection text selection style but using the primary selection
instead?

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Bob Proulx]

Drew Adams wrote:
> Ernest Adrogué wrote:
> > one of the things I like about running emacs in a terminal is that I
> > can select text without moving the point; is it possible to do the
> > same when running in a graphical interface (GTK)?

I also dearly would like to have this behavior too.  For pasting there
is of course the mouse-middle button.  And with mouse-yank-at-point it
will paste at the point just like in a raw terminal.

  (setq mouse-yank-at-point t)

But that is only the paste half.  The cut half is still missing.

> > Sorry, I wasn't specific enough. I meant selecting text using the mouse.
> >
> > In a terminal, the mouse is independent from emacs and it doesn't interfere
> > with it in any perceivable way, except when I paste something with a middle
> > click.  I think it's the terminal program, and not emacs, who handles the
> > mouse inputs.
> 
> Yes.  The relevant doc is (emacs) `Text-Only Mouse', which explains
> that only some text terminals support mouse clicks.

That is the opposite case.  That covers adding mouse support to a text
terminal.  (Personally I would never want that.  Blech!  But each to
their own.)

The question being asked is to have the graphics terminal behave such
that cutting with the mouse does not move the point.

> > In a GUI, it doesn't work the same way - as soon as I click anywhere the
> > point moves to that location.  I was wondering if tweaking some options I
> > could make GUI emacs behave more or less like when it runs inside a
> > terminal.  For example, to be able to select text (using the X cursor)
> > without moving emacs's point in the process.
> 
> Mouse selection in GUI Emacs is specifically for setting the region
> to the selected text.  So no, to have `mouse-1' not set point you
> would need to redefine a fair number of things.

It is a shame that there isn't some way to create a replacement for
mouse-drag-region that does a save-excursion so that it can cut the
text and then return the point to the previous position when done.  I
have wanted that behavior for years.

> In terminal mode, Emacs does not even recognize the mouse, in the
> sense that if you do `C-h k' and then click or drag the mouse, that
> action is unrecognized.

In terminal mode everything always works "correctly".  :-)  The desire
would be to have the gui mode work the same.

Bob

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 14:13:43 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> 
> In terminal mode, Emacs does not even recognize the mouse, in the
> sense that if you do `C-h k' and then click or drag the mouse, that
> action is unrecognized.

That's largely false, at least on most GNU/Linux systems and on
MS-Windows: the mouse is supported in text mode as well.  And on
xterm, we have xt-mouse for the same purpose.

RE: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Drew Adams]

> > In terminal mode, Emacs does not even recognize the mouse, in the
> > sense that if you do `C-h k' and then click or drag the mouse, that
> > action is unrecognized.
> 
> That's largely false, at least on most GNU/Linux systems and on
> MS-Windows: the mouse is supported in text mode as well.  And on
> xterm, we have xt-mouse for the same purpose.

I see; I stand corrected.  At least with `emacs -Q -nw' on MS
Windows 7, for me, `C-h k' does not seem to recognize any mouse
actions.  But I should not have generalized.  Thanks for the
correction.

It seems that I also misunderstood the request.  See Bob's message.
Perhaps you have an answer for the real request, as well?

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Sun, 8 Dec 2013 21:17:53 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> 
> At least with `emacs -Q -nw' on MS Windows 7, for me, `C-h k' does
> not seem to recognize any mouse actions.

It should.  Sometimes the first mouse click in a -nw session is
misreported by Windows, so the first time you might need to click
twice.  If that doesn't work either, then either (a) you click on an
area where a mouse click is not bound to any command, or (b) you have
the "Quick Edit" option checked in the Properties of the command
prompt window.  In the latter case, uncheck it and try again.

> Perhaps you have an answer for the real request, as well?

No, sorry.  (I don't really use the mouse for text selection.)

RE: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Drew Adams]

> > At least with `emacs -Q -nw' on MS Windows 7, for me, `C-h k' does
> > not seem to recognize any mouse actions.
> 
> It should.  Sometimes the first mouse click in a -nw session is
> misreported by Windows, so the first time you might need to click
> twice.  If that doesn't work either, then either (a) you click on an
> area where a mouse click is not bound to any command, or (b) you have
> the "Quick Edit" option checked in the Properties of the command
> prompt window.  In the latter case, uncheck it and try again.

Yes, I had Quick Edit on. Turning it off does as you describe. Thx.

But mouse-2 does not seem to paste what I've selected (even if I use
`M-w'). I just get the error "No selection is available".  The
debugger shows that (x-get-selection 'PRIMARY) returns nil.  I tried
fiddling with `select-active-regions' and `x-select-enable-*', but
that didn't help.

Anyway, it's OK.  I don't really use `emacs -nw' for anything more
than some quick sanity testing of code.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Mon, 9 Dec 2013 10:16:21 -0800 (PST)
> From: Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com>
> 
> But mouse-2 does not seem to paste what I've selected (even if I use
> `M-w'). I just get the error "No selection is available".

Selections don't work on text terminals, by design.  You will see that
on Windows mouse-2 does paste text cut/copied in another application,
but that's largely an incident, a side effect of implementation
details.  Copying into the clipboard from a text-terminal session is
disabled.

RE: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Drew Adams]

> > But mouse-2 does not seem to paste what I've selected (even if I use
> > `M-w'). I just get the error "No selection is available".
> 
> Selections don't work on text terminals, by design.  You will see that
> on Windows mouse-2 does paste text cut/copied in another application,
> but that's largely an incident, a side effect of implementation
> details.  Copying into the clipboard from a text-terminal session is
> disabled.

OK, that corresponds to what I see.  Thx.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Michael Heerdegen]

Ernest Adrogué <nfdisco@gmail.com> writes:

> >   (info "(emacs) Secondary Selection")
>
> Yeah, this is exactly it.  Now I guess the question is can I have the
> secondary selection text selection style but using the primary selection
> instead?

It's not intended to do so, I'm afraid; using the secondary selection is
hardcoded for that stuff.

Mmh, maybe we should try to modify the default mouse-1 behavior
instead.  Can you try the following:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(defun mouse-drag-region-restore-point-advice (f e)
  (let ((opoint (with-selected-window
		    (posn-window (event-start e))
		  (point))))
    (prog1 (funcall f e)
      (run-with-idle-timer
       0 nil
       (lambda (win pos)
	 (with-selected-window win
	   (deactivate-mark)
	   (goto-char pos)))
       (selected-window)  opoint))))

(advice-add 'mouse-drag-region
	    :around #'mouse-drag-region-restore-point-advice)
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

Does that behave as you want it to?


Regards,

Michael.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Ernest Adrogué]

Hi,

 9-12-2013, 20:26 (+0100); Michael Heerdegen escriu:
> Ernest Adrogué <nfdisco@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > >   (info "(emacs) Secondary Selection")
> >
> > Yeah, this is exactly it.  Now I guess the question is can I have the
> > secondary selection text selection style but using the primary selection
> > instead?
> 
> It's not intended to do so, I'm afraid; using the secondary selection is
> hardcoded for that stuff.
> 
> Mmh, maybe we should try to modify the default mouse-1 behavior
> instead.  Can you try the following:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (defun mouse-drag-region-restore-point-advice (f e)
>   (let ((opoint (with-selected-window
> 		    (posn-window (event-start e))
> 		  (point))))
>     (prog1 (funcall f e)
>       (run-with-idle-timer
>        0 nil
>        (lambda (win pos)
> 	 (with-selected-window win
> 	   (deactivate-mark)
> 	   (goto-char pos)))
>        (selected-window)  opoint))))
> 
> (advice-add 'mouse-drag-region
> 	    :around #'mouse-drag-region-restore-point-advice)
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> Does that behave as you want it to?

I can't get this to work, because I don't have this `advice-add` function in
my Emacs (I currently use version 24.3.1). As I'm not familiar with advices,
I redefined `mouse-drag-region` with your function instead, but this doesn't
work either. When I left-click I get:

"Wrong type of argument: commandp, mouse-drag-region"

RE: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Drew Adams]

> I redefined `mouse-drag-region` with your function instead, but this 
> doesn't work either. When I left-click I get:
> 
> "Wrong type of argument: commandp, mouse-drag-region"

Sounds like your redefinition is missing an `interactive' spec.
Copy the one from the original `mouse-drag-region'.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Michael Heerdegen]

Ernest Adrogué <nfdisco@gmail.com> writes:

> I can't get this to work, because I don't have this `advice-add`
> function in my Emacs

Here's the same for the old defadvice:

--8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
(defadvice mouse-drag-region (around test activate)
  (let ((opoint (with-selected-window
		    (posn-window (event-start (ad-get-arg 0)))
		  (point))))
    (prog1 ad-do-it
      (run-with-idle-timer
       0 nil
       (lambda (win pos)
	 (with-selected-window win
	   (deactivate-mark)
	   (goto-char pos)))
       (selected-window)  opoint))))
--8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---

This let's you copy text with the mouse, but disallows to manipulate the
region with the mouse.


Regards,

Michael.

Re: select text without moving the point in graphical interface

[Ernest Adrogué]

10-12-2013, 20:13 (+0100); Michael Heerdegen escriu:
> Ernest Adrogué <nfdisco@gmail.com> writes:
> 
> > I can't get this to work, because I don't have this `advice-add`
> > function in my Emacs
> 
> Here's the same for the old defadvice:
> 
> --8<---------------cut here---------------start------------->8---
> (defadvice mouse-drag-region (around test activate)
>   (let ((opoint (with-selected-window
> 		    (posn-window (event-start (ad-get-arg 0)))
> 		  (point))))
>     (prog1 ad-do-it
>       (run-with-idle-timer
>        0 nil
>        (lambda (win pos)
> 	 (with-selected-window win
> 	   (deactivate-mark)
> 	   (goto-char pos)))
>        (selected-window)  opoint))))
> --8<---------------cut here---------------end--------------->8---
> 
> This let's you copy text with the mouse, but disallows to manipulate the
> region with the mouse.

Yes, this is definitely much better. I think I'm going to use it.

Thank you!

Regards.