Subject: RE: bug#52293: [External] : bug#52293: 29.0.50; [PATCH v3] Prevent further cases of duplicated separators in context menus

From: Drew Adams <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2021 17:21:16 +0000

> > If someone does want to use the mouse for selecting
> > and deleting text, Emacs's mouse-3 behavior is great.
> 
> Not great, but bizarre.  No other app uses such method
> because of its limitations: 

What you call a limitation is a strength.

> while the currently default `mouse-3'
> only kills selected text, using the context menu from
> `mouse-3' allows to select more operations on the region -

That argument applies to almost any key.  We could
replace any number of "limited" key bindings by a
menu popup that makes you choose an action.

That argument doesn't hold water.  At best, you
can reduce it to the argument that if Emacs
imposed a popup menu then it would be like other
apps, which users might be used to.  That abstract
argument has never been enough, _on its own_, to
redefine Emacs behavior.

Better to give Emacs users themselves that choice.
Even better to give them that choice on the fly,
not just with a user option, by combining Emacs's
great `mouse-3' behavior with the possibility of
popping up a context menu.

> kill the region without adding it to the kill ring,
> kill the region with adding it to the kill ring,
> add the region to the kill ring without killing it,
> replace the region by pasting other text, etc.

You can put anything on a mouse-3 menu, of course.
And with the region active it makes sense for such a
menu to be region-specific or at least include actions
specific to the region.  (Which is what `mouse3.el'
does, of course.)