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

[Jack Repenning]

On Sep 21, 2011, at 2:05 PM, Hofert Jan Marius wrote:

> Concerning David's suggestion, I tried:
> (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]

The "secondary select" (David's suggestion) is not the select that stuff like "fill-region" and "indent-region" and "copy" work on. It's "secondary" in a very "secondary" sense, like "visible but not usable." You can get to it from Elisp code, but all the operations you naturally think of as working on the "selection" or "region" ignore it. I think, when David says "I have experimented..." he's talking about writing further Elisp code.

My, look how much discussion this topic always raises! So many partial solutions, all stemming from the fundamental, universal experience that "this is not what I had in mind" ;-)

-==-
Jack Repenning
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