Right-click to select one character under the mouse pointer?

Question

I'm using GUI emacs 24.4.9.0, so I can click to move the cursor, and double-click to select a word under the mouse pointer as a region.

How can I configure emacs so that right-click selects a character under the mouse pointer? I know that I can assign a function by writing

(global-set-key (kbd "<mouse-3>") 'foobar) 

in the init file, but when I wrote a function for this purpose a while ago, it didn't put the cursor under the place I right-clicked, it just started marking a character forward from where the mouse pointer is currently at. What kind of function I can use for placing the cursor right under the mouse pointer?

Answer 1

You can do it:

(defun select-char-at-click (event)
  "Select char at EVENT position.
EVENT should be a mouse-click event."
  (interactive "e")
  (run-hooks 'mouse-leave-buffer-hook) ; Give Isearch etc. a chance to turn off.
  (let ((pos  (cadr (event-start event))))
    (unless (>= pos (point-max))
      (push-mark pos)
      (goto-char (1+ (mark)))))
  (setq mark-active      t
    deactivate-mark  nil))

(global-set-key [mouse-3] 'select-char-at-click)
(global-set-key [down-mouse-3] 'ignore)

But you really do not want to do that. Mouse-3 (right button) is used in Emacs to extend the region from the point you set using mouse-1. It is also used in several contexts to pop up a right-click contextual menu.