Re: Selection changes in revno 100822

[Stephen J. Turnbull]

Eli Zaretskii writes:

 > The idea was that if the user pasted the selection, it is not
 > exactly "ephemeral" for her, and does not constitute pollution.

OK.  I disagree (strongly) with that assessment.  My own experience
suggests that pasting once is pretty much independent of the selection
being ephemeral, and that having an emphemeral selection encourages
use of the mouse.  Obviously the Emacs maintainers are in a better
position to make it for Emacs than I am.

 > > Is X secondary selection available by default in Emacs?
 > 
 > Yes, we have this in mouse.el:
 > 
 >   (global-set-key [M-mouse-1] 'mouse-start-secondary)
 >   (global-set-key [M-drag-mouse-1] 'mouse-set-secondary)
 >   (global-set-key [M-down-mouse-1] 'mouse-drag-secondary)
 >   (global-set-key [M-mouse-3] 'mouse-secondary-save-then-kill)
 >   (global-set-key [M-mouse-2] 'mouse-yank-secondary)

Ah, OK.  That would explain Drew's observation that the secondary is
more persistent than the primary, if it only gets set when somebody
intentionally sets it, and then it just stays that way.  I would
rarely want that behavior, personally.  I expect/would want it to be a
"fat cursor" for a drop target, either to exchange the two selections
or to overwrite the secondary with the primary.  Use of the secondary
is certainly a feature that could be independent of multiple kill
rings.

Again, a matter of personal preference.  Maybe I'll try enforcing it
on a couple of XEmacs betas and listen for howls of anguish.  Of
course, I expect none. :-)