The default handling of clipboard and primary selections has been
changed to conform with other X applications.
-The new behavior is that by default Emacs does not put text into the
-clipboard, and does not add it to kill-ring, merely because the text
-was selected. Only commands that kill text or copy it to the
+The new behavior is that by default Emacs does not put selected text
+into the clipboard, and does not add it to kill-ring, merely because
+the text was selected. Only commands that kill text or copy it to the
kill-ring (C-w, M-w, C-k, etc.) put the killed text into the
clipboard. Selected text is put into the primary selection (on
systems, such as X, that support the primary selection separately from
Similarly, Emacs by default does not retrieve text from the clipboard
when the mouse (e.g., mouse-2) is used for pasting text selected in
-another application. Text from the clipboard is retrieved only by
-C-y, M-y and other commands that yank text from the kill-ring. Mouse
-commands that paste text retrieve text from the primary selection, on
-systems that support it separately from the clipboard.
+another application. Mouse commands that paste text retrieve text
+from the primary selection, on systems that support it separately from
+the clipboard. Text from the clipboard is retrieved only by C-y, M-y
+and other commands that yank text from the kill-ring.
In other words, the default behavior is that mouse gestures that
-select and paste text work with the primary selection, while keyboard
-commands that kill/copy and paste text work with the clipboard.
+select and paste text work with the primary selection (on X), while
+keyboard commands that kill/copy and paste text work with the
+clipboard.
This change also means that the "Copy", "Cut", and "Paste" items of
the menu-bar "Edit" menu are now exactly equivalent to, respectively
To get back the previous behavior, whereby mouse gestures set the
clipboard and retrieve text from there, customize the variables
-`mouse-drag-copy-region' and (on X only) `x-select-enable-primary'.
-If you don't want Emacs to put the text into the clipboard, only to
-the primary selection, additionally customize
+`mouse-drag-copy-region' and (on X only) `x-select-enable-primary' to
+non-nil values. If you don't want Emacs to put the text into the
+clipboard, only to the primary selection, additionally customize
`x-select-enable-clipboard' to nil.
These changes in the default behavior are reflected in the default
*** `mouse-2' is now bound to `mouse-yank-primary'.
Previously, it was bound to `mouse-yank-at-click' (which is now
-unbound by default.
+unbound by default).
*** `x-select-enable-clipboard' now defaults to t on all platforms.
Thus, killing and yanking now use the clipboard (in addition to the