Poll about proposed change in DEL (aka Backspace) and Delete

[Richard Stallman]

In Emacs 24, now in pretest, a change is being considered for ASCII
DEL (on most keyboards, the Backspace key) and the Delete function
key.  The change affects the case of an active region that was not
dragged with the mouse.  The change is that these commands would
delete the region, rather than just one character as now.

In the past, this behavior was enabled in some minor modes: CUA mode,
Delete Selection mode, and PC Selection mode.  In the 24.0.90 pretest,
this behavior is enabled by default.  Thus, building and using the
pretest is an easy way to try the change.

Here are the questions we hope you will answer:

* Are you in favor of this change?

* Are you opposed to this change?

* How strongly do you feel about the matter?

We don't want to just "count votes" -- we want to understand
how this affects users.  So if you care about the issue,
please tell us how the change affects your editing.

* What are the cases where you find it helps?

* What are the cases where you find it hurts?

* What is your level of Emacs experience?

A further change in the same area has been suggested: when there is an
active region, a self-inserting character would delete the region
before the character is inserted by default.

* What would you think of this further change?

Please send your responses to address@hidden


-- 
Dr Richard Stallman
President, Free Software Foundation
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