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

[semperos]

Richard Stallman <rms <at> gnu.org> writes:

> 
> 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 emacs-delete-poll <at> gnu.org.
> 

I've been using Emacs seriously for about a year and a half. I am in favor of
both proposed changes, that (1) a selected region can be deleted by pressing
the del/backspace key and (2) if a region is selected, typing a new character
first deletes the selected region and then inserts a character.

In my opinion, this is the only intuitive behavior under these circumstances;
I struggle to think of an alternative behavior that makes more sense. I still
occasionally highlight a region, re-think, then press delete or type new
characters, forgetting that Emacs does not behave like this currently in 23.

-Daniel