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

Jack Repenning jrepenning at collab.net
Wed Sep 21 17:56:34 EDT 2011


On Sep 21, 2011, at 12:58 AM, Hofert Jan Marius wrote:

> I can't be that hard. In textmate it is just Command + A to select all without moving and in many modern editors it is not much more complicated either.

In "Textmate and all modern editors," yes indeed, the selection is distinct from the current insertion point. But in this sense, Emacs is not "modern." The "selection is point-to-mark" behavior has been how Emacs worked since birth, around 1976, long long before there were any "modern editors." 

> As a newbie to emacs, I get quite confused by all these many keys to hit and although being easier in the long run, having to type that much seems complicated.

Well, again ... Emacs is kind of a time machine: it's 1976! There are no menus or mice, no colored highlights on-screen, no multi-window bitmap displays. There's just you and your green-phosphor 80x24 ;-)

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Jack Repenning
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