[OS X Emacs] Select all: how to *not* jump to the beginning of the file + how to not change the selection?

[David Reitter]

On Sep 21, 2011, at 5:05 PM, Hofert Jan Marius wrote:
> (1) M-"mouse-drag" # this selected the chosen region and gave it a different color
> (2) M-w # tried to copy it
> (3) C-y # tried to paste it
> But it wasn't pasted the copied region, it was pasted something from the clipboard which I copied there some time ago. [I'm sure I understood something wrong here]

No, that's a misunderstanding.  What I outlined in my e-mail was a potential avenue for a "mode" that a programmer would implement, i.e., an additional Emacs package, or something that will one day be part of Aquamacs.  M-w will copy the (primary) region.

http://www.emacswiki.org/emacs/SecondarySelection

refers; you may try second-sel.el that is referenced on this page.

> Copying is still something I don't feel comfortable with: On the Mac I use CMD + C all the time. As far as I know, in Aquamacs the same should work. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. I guess it depends on the mode but I should narrow down this behavior more clearly. Since M-w always works I am wondering if one can hard-bind CMD + C to execute M-w when in Aquamacs (via some kind of global key definition)…

Cmd-c and friends are implemented to do the right thing; it is bound to `clipboard-kill-ring-save', which should always copy the region.

If there is a specific case where it doesn't (but M-w does), please find out what exactly the case is and report it as a bug.   That said, I'm pretty sure we would've received many bug reports already if Command-C was faulty!

By the way, just to clarify:  The reason why Emacs doesn't separate the region from Point/Mark is that it was conceived to be used without a mouse.  And that has, even in 2011, its advantages, when reaching for the mouse may give a lot of us extra pain and long-term damage from repetitive strain injury and similar ailments.  (The fact that it is inflexible and can't be configured is unfortunate, though.)

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