(I'm using Emacs for more than 25 years, starting in version 18.58 I think)
Recently Emacs received changes that make an old-time user quite desperate, and I wonder how to revert some of those dubious "enhancements":
When I set a mark, copy and paste the region, and then want to edit the region (frequently I press C-x C-x to place the mark at the start of the pasted region, then move the cursor and try to replace some text, maybe using backspace or delete), it happened more than once (without me noticing it all the time) that as soon as I edit the pasted region that the whole region is replaced by the character input. This is especially dangerous if you duplicate a longer block of text: Recently I modified the only copy of it instead of modifying the duplicate.
So which customization setting is responsible for this? I'm using Emacs 25.3.
(The other "enhancement" I was able to fix myself was that next-line
moved down to the next screen line instead of the next buffer line)
Here's an attempt for a reproducable example:
C-u [universal-argument]
7 [digit-argument]
2 [digit-argument]
a [self-insert-command]
<return> [newline]
C-u [universal-argument]
7 [digit-argument]
2 [digit-argument]
b [self-insert-command]
<return> [newline]
<up> [previous-line]
<up> [previous-line]
C-SPC [set-mark-command]
<down> [next-line]
<down> [next-line]
M-w [kill-ring-save]
C-y [yank]
C-y [yank]
<up> [previous-line]
<up> [previous-line]
<up> [previous-line]
<up> [previous-line]
C-SPC [set-mark-command]
<down> [next-line]
<down> [next-line]
M-w [kill-ring-save]
<up> [previous-line]
<up> [previous-line]
C-y [yank]
C-x C-x [exchange-point-and-mark]
<right> [right-char]
<right> [right-char]
<right> [right-char]
<right> [right-char]
<right> [right-char]
<backspace> [backward-delete-char-untabify]
The first backspace kills the whole region.
delete-active-region
, although that only functions for 'deleting' commandsdelete-selection-mode
. Please check that you see the same problem when starting Emacs usingemacs -Q
(no init file). A guess is that you've initiated some mode, or loaded some code, that turns ondelete-selection-mode
.emacs -Q
?emacs -Q
, and others don't, then I suspect you have not described the recipe to reproduce it clearly enough. Maybe try breaking it down into baby steps, with a concrete example.