Re: [Nano-devel] [Request] allow deleting a marked region without affecting the cutbuffer

[David Ramsey]

Brand Huntsman:
> Hard and soft marking both have pros and cons to using them, but code
> that uses them shouldn't care which one the user chose. So Del/Bsp
> should delete hard and soft regions equally or there should be an
> option to enable both, with neither deleting by default (I'm guessing
> this is what you mean by "an option to cause the behavior change"). I
> think treating hard and soft separately would cause confusion as to
> why it deletes for one but not the other.

After some more thought, I'd agree with treating hard and soft marks the
same way, since there's no visual cue to indicate which the user has,
and a mixture of the two just muddles things more, so tying behavior to
mark type will just open up a major can of worms.

The main problem here is that Backspace and Delete have to work the way
they do now when the hardmark is on, in order to maintain Pico
compatibility.  An easier solution would be to keep Backspace and Delete
doing what they do now, and just use a new keystroke to accomplish the
nuke/erase/whatever function.

> The patch adds a 'nuke' function that can be bound by the user. It has
> the same behavior as the 'cut' function, unmarked lines are deleted or
> if cutfromcursor is enabled, it deletes to the end of unmarked line.
> Nano could include a default binding for it, one just needs to be
> chosen.

This sounds good to me.

> The Del/Bsp is just another key that only erases for selections.

This doesn't, for the reason stated above.

> Could M-Del be made the default key for the function?

Possibly, but given all of the other key-translation problems with
Delete (as seen by the word-cutting keystroke issues), I'm not certain.

> Does anyone have a preference for one of these? Perhaps "erase"?

I prefer "erase".  "Blot" and "wipe" make me think more of screen
display effects, not text editing effects.