Re: Tried to bind Ctrl-c and to kill-ring-save (i.e. copy) and it *sometimes* doesn't work with mouse!?!? Very confusing

[Emanuel Berg]

Drew Adams <drew.adams@oracle.com> writes:

> There you go again.

...as did you.

> That's ... irrelevant to the OP question

It might be irrelevant to the OP's *question*, but not to the
OP's *behaviour*, as is indicated by his desire to use the mouse
and the cua keys.

That sounds like he is trying to use Emacs like his previous
editor, be it notepad++ or some integrated editor in an IDE. That
doesn't compute, so now he is trying to configure Emacs to behave
like that, instead.

And I say that's not a good idea. Not in general, and not with
regards to the cua keys, or the mouse.

> It is not "best" to *not* use the mouse to select text, just as
> it is not "best" to *use* the mouse to select text.

You might have something of a point here, if you do lots of
*edits* and *reorganizations* of text, and perhaps especially of
*code*, where you can work on chunks that are already organized
(by syntax, and by indentation) then I actually see the point of
using the mouse, because you could bind buttons to work on those
units.

But, that could be arranged with the keyboard as well (possibly
requiring some extra work to set it up). And moreover, if you do
edits, reorganizations, etc. all the time, and with such a need
for precision - perhaps you should write slower (mentally), and
with a higher degree of presence, rather than developing
Jedi-mouse skills?

That is actually something I hear all the time: "All I do at work
is Copy & Paste." And I *never* do that. (And I don't say you do
it, either, but this is something that I hear over and over, and
it mystifies me.)

> The Emacs mouse ... is not your grandmother's mouse

Isn't that the mouse you like, with your celebration of Engelbart?
Seriously, speaking of him, GNU Parallel just came with a new
release, named 'Engelbart' - after the very same, I take it.

> The examples you gave (`M-h' and `C-SPC' + `C-n'...) are not
> great arguments for preferring the keyboard to select arbitrary
> text or even an arbitrary sexp or a set of contiguous lines.

Those are just examples. The point is not how to do it with the
mouse vs. how to do it with the keyboard. The mouse has buttons
and the keyboard has buttons. The mouse moves around a pointer,
and the keyboard scrolls the buffer, and/or moves around the
cursor. So that far, it is a draw. But the keyboard does something
more: it types. And if you use the keyboard exclusively, you are
always in the position to type. And that is, after all, what you
do with an editor. Moving stuff around (that's already there) is,
while I admit, sometimes necessary, close to if not outright
overhead. The optimal way is to write it correct the first time
around, and you do that with - the keyboard. With practice, it
becomes easier. And I don't think the mouse helps in that process,
actually I think it is the other way around.

> The real point, however, is that it is not necessarily the
> "best" idea to advise newbies to adopt your particular
> preferences as the "best" way to use Emacs.  It is one thing to
> say "I prefer XYZ" or "I do it this way".  It is another thing
> to preach your way as The One True Way.

Well, when I write "A is best", if it makes you feel better, you
may read this as "I prefer A" or "I do it A". I don't see the
difference, really.

-- 
Emanuel Berg - programmer (hire me! CV below)
computer projects: http://user.it.uu.se/~embe8573
internet activity: http://home.student.uu.se/embe8573