Subject: bug#29889: 27.0.50; Slow visual selection

From: Lars Ingebrigtsen <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 20 May 2022 11:03:10 +0200

Po Lu <[email-masked]> writes:

> I didn't yet read the rest of the bug report, but AFAIK we already have
> a way to set a selection to a pair of positions in a buffer.  Requestors
> get the contents of the buffer between those two positions, but no
> string is consed until a program actually asks for the contents of the
> selection.
>
> We could have a new value of `select-active-regions' that tells Emacs to
> set the primary selections to buffer positions if the active region is
> not temporary, thereby avoiding the unreasonably high amount of string
> consing.
>
> The only problem is that this feature is only implemented on X and
> Haiku, and not consing a string every time the selection is set is
> impossible outside X.

Yes, that would solve the performance problem, but the surprising
behaviour would still exist.

That is, I think most people would not expect that just setting the mark
in a buffer would make the part between mark and point available in the
selection in other programs.

So I think just flipping the default to `only' would be the best thing
here, even if the current value has been in effect since 24.1,
apparently.  (And then mention this as an incompatible change in NEWS,
of course.)

So I think I'll do that, unless somebody objects a lot.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no