RE: The X window system, yanking, and pasting using the mouse

[Drew Adams]

`select-active-regions' is a bad name.  An active region is always selected, by
definition.  (And there is only ever one active region, not several.)

More importantly, this name says nothing about the primary selection, which is
really what the option is all about IIUC.  Please rename the option.  One
possible name is `autocopy-active-region-to-primary': a copy is made
automatically, from the active region to the primary selection.


And please avoid giving the impression that the primary selection is "the
selection".  Selected text in Emacs used to simply refer to the region.  Now
users need to distinguish various sorts of selection (selected text): primary
selection, mouse selection, and region.

And the region itself can be active or inactive, its text being selected in both
cases.  But sometimes users understand "selection" as only the highlighted text
(which can be the mouse selection or the active region, but not the inactive
region).

Like the users, the doc and names now need to characterize carefully and not
just speak of "selection" without qualification.

Users also need to distinguish various operations for each kind of selection:
yank vs paste, paste from the clipboard vs paste from the primary/mouse
selection, etc.

Currently the doc is a mess wrt sorting all of this out.  The vocabulary used is
inconsistent, ambiguous, and confusing.  From bug #7702:

d>> there is the problem of just what the relation is between
d>> pasting and yanking....  Even just the notion of "pasting"
d>> is not very clear.  When you use `mouse-2' are you pasting?
d>> Or is "pasting" reserved for something that is pasted from 
d>> the clipboard.  Etc. - we need to be clearer about these terms.
ez>
ez> That's a different job, and a much larger one.  I would
ez> suggest a separate bug report, or maybe wait until Emacs 24
ez> is near its pretest....   explaining the difference is
ez> hopelessly complicated, perhaps even impossible in Emacs 23.