[Openmcl-devel] Mouse Copy

[R. Matthew Emerson]

On Nov 12, 2007, at 2:45 PM, Rainer Joswig wrote:

> \what's the word on Mouse Copy? MCL has it. Clozure CL needs it,  
> right?
>
> With 'Mouse Copy' one can click on Lisp expressions and they get
> inserted at the current point.
> If there is a selection, it will be replaced with the Lisp expression.
>
> MCL uses Command-Click.
>
> For example you can click on
> * an open parentheses and the whole S-Expression will be copied
> * a symbol and the symbol will be copied
> * the 'current expression' (number, character, string, ...) and it
> will be copied
>
> Also nice to have
> * a semicolon and the whole comment to the end of line will be copied
>
> It is a really nice feature and makes editing much easier.
>
> (LispWorks and Genera also have variants of it, the Mouse Copy from
> MCL is the nicest, IMHO).

It sounds like a good feature.  I made a ticket for it so that we  
don't forget about it.

http://trac.clozure.com/openmcl/ticket/177

I think that we want a pretty standard Mac OS-style text editing  
interface, but using command-click for something like this probably  
isn't a big problem.  Normally, command-click is used to make non- 
continguous selections, but multiple active regions aren't part of  
Hemlock's view of the world anyway.

The editor is currently a big unusual in that parts of its  
functionality are due to using the built-in behavior of NSTextView,  
while other parts are provided by Hemlock.

For instance, you can currently use command-click to select multiple,  
non-contiguous, bits of text, press command-E, and get them all  
evaluated.  This is done completely at the NSTextView level---Hemlock  
has no idea of the selection.  If you make a selection like this and  
then try to say M-x Uppercase Region, for example, Hemlock says that  
the current region isn't active.

Hemlock probably ought to be running the show (managing scrolling,  
selection, etc.) more than it currently is.