Subject: bug#7260: 24.0.50; DEL screwed up

From: Chong Yidong <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 24 Oct 2010 12:30:26 -0400

Richard Stallman <[email-masked]> writes:

>   It sounds rather odd to have `C-d' not delete the active region.  If
>   you (for instance) Shift-Right an area, and then press `DEL', I think
>   most people would expect the region you've just selected to be deleted.
>
> After shift-arrows is a special case when it might be proper for DEL
> and C-d to delete the region.

This might be OK, and indeed I think it should at least be an option.
One problem is that it can be confusing.  Currently, temporarily active
regions (i.e. shift-selected and/or mouse-selected) behave as much like
ordinary active regions as possible, with respect to user commands.  If
we make DEL behave differently for one type of region, what's the
justification for limiting ourselves to DEL?

For instance, in other X applications, shift-selecting a region and
typing a self-inserting character replaces the region.  By this
reasoning, shouldn't we enable Delete Selection mode style behavior for
shift-selected regions?