Re: Emacs learning curve

[Chong Yidong]

David De La Harpe Golden <address@hidden> writes:

>> Thanks for reminding me: is there any reason x-select-enable-clipboard
>> isn't t by default?
>
> Because it will do an incredibly annoying thing unless you also
> reconfigure certain other settings:
>
> If you want emacs cut and paste to act like other recent X11 apps:
>
> (setq mouse-drag-copy-region nil)
> (setq x-select-enable-primary nil
> (setq x-select-enable-clipboard to t)
> (setq select-active-regions to t)
> (global-set-key [mouse-2] 'mouse-yank-primary)

Yes, this is what I have in mind.  I remember that we postphoned these
changes during Emacs 23, because not all the necessary code was in place
at the time.

To summarize:

  C-w and M-w should copy to the clipboard and set the primary
    in addition to updating the kill-ring.

  shift-selection and mouse-dragging should set/update the primary,
    leaving the clipboard and the kill-ring alone.

  mouse-2 should yank the primary.

The main downside, IIRC, is that some users may not want C-w in Emacs to
clobber the clipboard.  I can understand how this may be a concern,
since the Emacs kill-ring is much more flexible than the clipboard.  But
this seems to be something for advanced users to worry about; for the
default, we ought to stick close to X11 "standards").