Re: AW: delete-selection-mode

[Miles Bader]

"Drew Adams" <address@hidden> writes:
>> The "DEL deletes" functionality seems the main thing; a mode 
>> which only did that would probably be fine, and solve 95% of
>> the muscle-memory-from-other-apps issues.
>
> Why? How will that help users who expect the usual type-to-replace behavior?

It won't, but based on what I've seen, I think that people who actually
"type to delete", instead of hitting DEL first and _then_ typing the new
text, are a minority.

[Note that this observation doesn't apply to specialized input fields
like browser address boxes -- they're set up so that "type to delete" is
the usual action -- but they're a very specialized and unusual context,
and should not be treated like standard text buffers.]

[Just to be clear, "DEL" means the `delete-backward-char' key.]

> What's so special about DEL?  IIUC, your proposal essentially binds DEL to
> `delete-region' when the region is active.

Yes, and that's _good_.  It's simple, straight-forward, and has the good
points without the bad points.

The goal is _not_ to turn Emacs into windows, it's to help people with
windows-influenced muscle-memory a bit, when doing so is not harmful.

Clearly there are many controversial issues in this area, so we should
pick off the low-hanging fruit first.

-Miles

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