RE: follow-link in grep buffer

[Drew Adams]

    I realise that applications like web browsers use mouse-1 to
    follow links, so
    it is a good idea for Emacs to provide some consistency and it
    works well with
    Info pages. However, I am not sure if it is always appropriate
    as Emacs users
    understand that mouse-1 just generally moves the cursor, while
    mouse-2 might
    jump to another buffer. The grep buffer is an example. If I try
    to place the
    cursor anywhere on a line before the end of a match, the associated file
    pops up in another buffer. However I might just want to select
    that window
    to resize it. I could select the window by clicking on the
    modeline but if I
    click on the wrong part I get a different buffer. All this
    functionality must
    be daunting for the new user, so I suggest the following:

    1) Mouse-1 is not used to follow links in the grep or
    compilation buffers.

    2) If it has to be used for this purpose, then it only works
    where the match
       occurs (this must be easy to implement as it already has a
    different face)
       and the match is also underlined so that it looks like a link.

Y'know, I knew this would come up sooner or later.

I believe that the idea was to have the mouse-1 follow-links (and activate
buttons) behavior be a user option. (I'm not sure what I prefer in this
regard, as a user.) It's good for Emacs to act like other apps in this
regard, as long as that doesn't impact functionality or cause other pbs. But
you are absolutely correct that mouse-1 following links (and activating
action buttons) will make it difficult to just select a buffer with the
mouse, whenever that buffer is link-dense (or button-dense).

One possibility that occurs to me now is to have a mouse-1 click in a window
other than the selected-window act as mouse-1 does now: just set point. That
is, the first mouse-1 click just sets point and selects the window; only
thereafter would mouse-1 follow links.

That is similar to the behavior I see in Windows, where clicking mouse-1 on
a (WM) window that doesn't have the focus just shifts the focus: If you
click a button (for example) in a window that doesn't have the focus, the
window is selected, but the button is not activated (you must click it
again, after the window has the focus, for it to take effect).

This would not completely solve the problem you raise: You could not use
mouse-1 to move point to a different part of the same, focused window. But
the time-delay approach that was proposed a few months ago (by Kim?) would
presumably address that pb. I think the idea there is that if you want to
set point with mouse-1, then you just hold mouse-1 pressed longer than some
(user-settable?) time limit, before releasing it.