Re: Selection changes in revno 100822

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Eli Zaretskii writes:

 > I wasn't talking about clipboard pasting, I was talking about
 > pasting from the primary selection.

AFAIK you can't copy/paste from the Windows primary selection (unless
it's a situation where moving doesn't make sense, such as between
disks in Explorer), although you can drag it somewhere else.  (More
explanation below.)

 > > > But pasting gets from the primary selection unconditionally, so
 > > > it seems.

 > > No, mouse-2 clicking does. pasting (C-y/ CUA C-v) doesn't.

 > This just adds more confusion.  Mouse-2 _was_ pasting until very
 > recently.

That's because of the (bogus) historical association of the selection
with the kill-ring in Emacs.  Good riddance, IMO.

 > > mouse-2 click insertion and clipboard pasting are not equivalent
 > > on x11.  If you think they are, then that surely would lead you
 > > to be confused.

 > Please give me some minimal credit that I know what I'm talking
 > about.

That's kind of difficult when you also wrote this:

 > We've been there before.  As far as Windows use patterns are
 > concerned, we disagree.  I expect most Windows users disagree with
 > you, because there's only the clipboard, so no way of having 2
 > different selection types and 2 different ways of pasting.

On X11 there are three different selection types, in fact, and two
different ways of pasting.  That is a fact, and saying the Windows
users don't believe it doesn't make it any less true.

And in fact, there *is* an analog to the X11 primary selection on
Windows, and it can only be manipulated with the mouse.  That's what
is used for drag'n'drop.  AFAIK there is no way to paste that
selection from the keyboard (C-v) without using cut (C-x) or copy
(C-c) first (in fact C-v will overwrite it with the contents of the
clipboard), but in some applications (eg, the Explorer) it can be
dragged, which causes either movement or copying depending on context,
and does not affect the clipboard.  Am I wrong?

I don't know enough about Windows to guess whether Emacs could access
this feature, but I bet if it were available some Windows users would
take to dragging text around in a buffer like ducks take to water.

 > Now let's stop arguing about this, because we will never agree.
 > The above was just my opinion, not an invitation to another
 > dispute.

Your opinion is wrong, and that matters a lot.  Some experienced X
users use the "drag to select, middle button to paste" and "drag to
select, drag again to move" gestures a lot (when available, drag to
move isn't standard part of toolkits AFAIK, although some apps
implement it).  If available, Windows users might like to use it too.

 > > primary selections are inserted when you click mouse-2.
 > > primary selections are not inserted when you paste (C-v)
 > 
 > Does this mean I have no way of pasting from the primary selection
 > without using a mouse?  That's hardly a Good Thing.

Indeed, it's a Damn Good Thing.  Pasting from the *primary* selection
is supposed to be lightweight.  It's only interesting if you only want
to do something very simple (copy/paste) quickly, and not disturb the
state of the application or system (specifically, the contents of the
clipboard).  Since your hand is already on the mouse in most cases,
why would you use a different interface to manipulate the selection?

Otherwise, you need to manipulate a clipboard (with the menus or keys,
and here by "a clipboard" I mean either the system clipboard, or an
app-specific clipboard such as the Emacs kill ring).  And if you
originally selected via the keyboard, then you can easily use C-c or
C-x to copy/move it to a clipboard.