Re: Selection changes in revno 100822

[Jan Djärv]

Eli Zaretskii skrev 2010-08-14 10.00:

> I'm utterly confused now.  The doc string of x-select-enable-primary
> says:
>
>    Non-nil means cutting and pasting uses the primary selection.
>
> According to this, the value of nil, the current default, means
> "cutting and pasting do NOT use the primary selection", right?
>
> But OTOH, the NEWS entry says something contradictory:
>
>    The way Emacs interacts with the clipboard and primary selection, by
>    default, is now similar to other X applications.  In particular, kill
>    and yank use the clipboard, in addition to the primary selection.
>
> The last sentence seems to say that kill and yank still do use the
> primary selection, and _in_addition_ also use the clipboard.  If
> that's the intent of this text, then it seems to be in contradiction
> with the new default of x-select-enable-primary.

The name is bad.  The way other X apps doit is that selected text (i.e. just 
selected, not cut/copied) goes to PRIMARY.
Then when you cut/copy, it goes to CLIPBOARD also.

So the name x-select-enable-primary is really x-cut/copy-into-primary AFAIK.

> One other issue we should consider IMO is what is the semantics of
> mouse-2 in sessions that support the mouse, but cannot access
> selections.  One such example is a TTY with a GPM mouse.  I don't have
> access to such a build of Emacs, but I'm quite sure mouse-2 there will
> either do nothing or signal an error.  That's hardly a good thing,
> because previously it would yank from the kill ring.

Maybe Emacs should use some internal notion of PRIMARY on those platforms
where it don't exist.  That way select and mouse-2 selects and insterts text
as on X.  But without touching the kill ring.

> Thanks in advance for helping me become less confused.

It is very confusing.  There are special cases depending on how the selection 
was made, and then badly named variables increase the confusion.  Not to 
mention trying to handle multiple platforms with differing capabilities.

        Jan D.