[lug] silly emacs

[David]

> > > I'm no lisp guru- so silly emacs question. How can I get emacs to NOT
> > > automatically copy a selection when I select something with the mouse? I
> > > hate that!
> > >
> > >
> > > ljp
> >There is no such thing as a silly question, only silly answers 8-)
> >
> >I may be able to help, I programme Emacs a lot; but I do not
> >understand what you are trying to do because I never use the mouse in
> >Emacs.  If you can describe things a little more I shall be happy to
> >look at it.
> 
> Sure. Every windblows editor natively does this-> When I select a word by 
> clicking on it, it does not copy the word to the clipboard.
> I can then C-v to paste into the selected item. Move to another word, 
> highlight it, and paste the same word as before. Whereas emacs, when I 
> highlight a word, copies the text into the clipboard 'ring', I can only 
> paste what I have in the clipboard only once. Like this-
> C-c: "this phrase"
> 
> highlight: "the phrase to be overwritten"
> C-v: "this phrase"
> 
> when I try to paste a second time, what gets pasted is
> "the phrase to be overwritten"
> instead of "this phrase"
> 
> ljp

I am still not completely clear about this.  But here are some things
that come to mind.  Tell me if your Emacs does not behave like this.

* In Emacs if I double-leftclick on a word, or if I mark a region by
  holding down the left button, dragging, and releasing the button,
  then I copy the marked text into the kill-ring (= Win:clipboard).
  After doing this I can paste that copied text at point (= left side
  of the cursor) by clicking the middle button.  I can paste this way
  any number of times; and I can move the cursor anywhere and it keeps
  on pasting.  "Anywhere" includes any other application, such as
  Konqueror, Netscape, StarOffice, another Emacs, etc.; however
  sometimes the recipient (e.g. StarOffice) seems to require C-v
  rather than a middle click.

* If I double-rightclick the current region is deleted.  My immediate
  reaction is that this seems to me to be asymetric wrt to
  double-leftclick, and is not what I would want - how do I know what
  is going to disappear?  However, I can control deletion by first
  selecting a region as described in the bullet above
  (double-leftclick or dragging) and then immediately
  double-rightclicking.

* What I cannot do is, first copy something, then highlight some other
  region and *replace* the region with the copied material.  I have
  always liked this Windows feature, and I have for a long time now
  intended to train Emacs to do that (it is not difficult to
  programme, but I have never got a round tuit).  However, having
  written that, I feel that, since replacement is such a nice
  characteristic, someone else must have done it; I am close to
  betting that it has been done already.  Do you know how to do this
  with the mouse?

  Here is one way how to do it with the keyboard.
  - position point (= left side of cursor) at the beginning of the
    copy
  - set the mark with C-@
  - move to the end of the copy, this can be in either direction from
    the beginning of the copy
  - run kill-ring-save with M-w
  - move to the beginning of the text to be replaced
  - set the mark
  - move to the end of the text to be replaced
  - kill the text with C-w
  - select the second item in the kill-ring with C-u 2
  - insert the copy with C-y
  This may seem long-winded, but my experience is that it is faster
  than using the mouse; especially since I have other key bindings
  which cut down on the keystrokes.

* What you want is to highlight the region, use C-c to copy it,
  highlight another region and use C-v to replace one with the other -
  is that right?  If so, all you need really is a "replace-region"
  entry (= C-v) in your menu.  In other words actually the C-c is
  superfluous (just highlighting the region copies it, and anyway, in
  Emacs, C-c is a *very* bad choice since C-c is reserved for other
  things); however, having highlit the region for replacement, which
  puts *that* text into the kill-ring, you want to yank the second
  entry.  I still cannot help but think that there is another way; but
  I do not know it if there is.

  Ok, you have spurred me into doing the coding; I shall post it
  when it is done.  In the meantime let me know if I am off-base wrt
  what you want.


In conclusion, with regard to this topic Emacs is somewhat like Linux:
you can make it do all sorts of thing, but you have to read about it
first, understand the topic and then do the implementation.  You might
try reading the sections on "Important Text-Changing Commands" in the
Info entry for Emacs.

dajo