Re: Improving X selection?

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

David De La Harpe Golden writes:

 > Highlight:
 > 
 > recent-X11-style behaviour, propagate the active region to the X11 primary,
 > _without_ affecting clipboard or kill-ring.

Er, if "recent ... behavior" is the rationale for "propagate
... kill-ring", your time-scale is geological.  The current behavior
of Emacs (and XEmacs) was generally decided ages ago, deliberately
flouting the conventions of X11 (I believe these are recommended but
not mandated by the ICCCM), which haven't changed since then AFAICT.
My understanding is that this behavior was hotly debated at that time,
and deliberately chosen.

I see no reason why users should not get the behavior you've
implemented if they want it (I think it better corresponds to my
personal preferences, for one thing ;-), but

(1) The defaults should not change without substantial experimentation.
    (I believe you've taken care about that already, but it deserves
    emphasis.)

(2) I expect it will be important to uptake that any behavior be
    substantially mimicked on non-X platforms if at all possible.  The
    (admittedly approximate) constancy of semantics of mouse gestures
    across platforms is something that many of our users find very
    important (and we're talking a decade of experience in XEmacs,
    dunno how long Emacs has been usable on Windows or if Emacs has
    many users who swing both ways ... I know the maintainer doesn't!).

 > lightins:

Yuck.  Sounds like occupying a government office as a demonstration
against opaque politics.  Please spell out your intended expansion,
and let the users choose the abbreviation.

 > recent-X11-style behaviour, middle-button insert of X11 primary,
 > _without_ affecting clipboard or kill-ring.

How does middle-button *affect* clipboard and/or kill-ring?  Do you
mean something like "consult"?