bug#12723: 24.2; Improvement: changing text rectangle kill/past and its integration with the kill-ring

[Jiehong Ma]

This is actually a kind of improvement I would like to submit here.

We all know how rectangle selections are working with registers. The idea
of having a rectangle selection is great, but the key-bindings to use
it is far from that adjective. In the following, I would like to
present how I think it would be nicer, and also more accessible to
users.

1. Every selection should start, and act the same way, i.e. by using C-SPC.

2. While the selection is active, switch into a rectangular-mode thanks
to a key-binding (I propose C-x r), and visually show it to the user.
(as does the rect-mark package for example).

3. When the rectangular selection is fully chosen by the user, use a
=E2=80=9Cnormal=E2=80=9D function to kill it: C-w, M-w.

4. Give access to this rectangle in the kill-ring directly (no need to
name a register).

5. When the user yank a normal piece of text, act as usual. However, if
the current entry in the buffer is a rectangle, yang it accordingly (
for both C-y, M-y)

Having such a work-flow would make the usage of text-rectangle selection
a piece of cake, since we would only need to remember 1 key-binding to
switch the selection into a rectangle-mode.

Registers could be bind to different key-bindings as well.

Technically, I do not really know how to do that. I thought that it may
be possible to actually keep a kind of pointer into the kill ring,
pointing to a register having a unique name. Maybe it could be simpler.
I can't tell, since my knowledge of elisp is limited.

Jiehong Ma

In GNU Emacs 24.2.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 3.4.4)
 of 2012-08-28 on shaun
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation