Mouse Commands for Editing
The mouse commands for selecting and copying a region are mostly compatible with the xterm program. You can use the same mouse commands for copying between Emacs and other X client programs.
If you select a region with any of these mouse commands, and then immediately afterward type the <DELETE> function key, it deletes the region that you selected. The <BACKSPACE> function key and the ASCII character <DEL> do not do this; if you type any other key in between the mouse command and <DELETE>, it does not do this.
- Mouse-1
Move point to where you click (mouse-set-point). This is normally the left button. - Drag-Mouse-1
Set the region to the text you select by dragging, and copy it to the kill ring (mouse-set-region). You can specify both ends of the region with this single command.If you move the mouse off the top or bottom of the window while dragging, the window scrolls at a steady rate until you move the mouse back into the window. This way, you can select regions that don't fit entirely on the screen. The number of lines scrolled per step depends on how far away from the window edge the mouse has gone; the variable mouse-scroll-min-lines specifies a minimum step size.
- Mouse-2
Yank the last killed text, where you click (mouse-yank-at-click). This is normally the middle button. - Mouse-3
This command, mouse-save-then-kill, has several functions depending on where you click and the status of the region.The most basic case is when you click Mouse-1 in one place and then Mouse-3 in another. This selects the text between those two positions as the region. It also copies the new region to the kill ring, so that you can copy it to someplace else.
If you click Mouse-1 in the text, scroll with the scroll bar, and then click Mouse-3, it remembers where point was before scrolling (where you put it with Mouse-1), and uses that position as the other end of the region. This is so that you can select a region that doesn't fit entirely on the screen.
More generally, if you do not have a highlighted region, Mouse-3 selects the text between point and the click position as the region. It does this by setting the mark where point was, and moving point to where you click.
If you have a highlighted region, or if the region was set just before by dragging button 1, Mouse-3 adjusts the nearer end of the region by moving it to where you click. The adjusted region's text also replaces the old region's text in the kill ring.
If you originally specified the region using a double or triple Mouse-1, so that the region is defined to consist of entire words or lines, then adjusting the region with Mouse-3 also proceeds by entire words or lines.
If you use Mouse-3 a second time consecutively, at the same place, that kills the region already selected.
- Double-Mouse-1
This key sets the region around the word which you click on. If you click on a character with "symbol" syntax (such as underscore, in C mode), it sets the region around the symbol surrounding that character.
