Abby Fichtner
Abby Fichtner

Reputation: 2648

In VisualStudio 2008, emacs mode - how can you enable "overwrite"?

Using VisualStudio 2008, have emacs keyboard mapping scheme enabled.

If I select text and try to paste over it, it INSERTS the new text, rather than replacing it.

Also, if I select text and hit DELETE it deletes the first character AFTER the selected text (just as if I didn't have any text selected).

Does anyone know how to fix this so that I get the standard windows behavior. That is:

  1. If I select text and try to paste over it, it replaces the selected text with what I pasted in.

  2. If I select text and hit the DELETE key, it actually deletes the text I have selected

Thanks!

Abby

Upvotes: 4

Views: 718

Answers (4)

Ray
Ray

Reputation: 192426

XKeymacs, an Emacs keyboard utility app which you can run while using Visual Studio instead of the built-in VS Emacs scheme, behaves in the ideal manner you described. When text is selected and if you either delete it, overwrite it, or paste over it, the entire old text will be removed and not the first character.

Upvotes: 1

JMM
JMM

Reputation: 11

That is the behavior of emacs. However one of the most common bits in people's emacs initialization if they are Windows users is to alter this behavior to match other editors. Since emacs main purpose is to be configurable, making an emacs emulation that isn't configurable in this way is like preserving the bathwater and throwing out the baby.

Upvotes: 1

Seth
Seth

Reputation: 1

After doing a bit of searching on this, I started wondering how the real Emacs program works. Turns out, Emacs deletes at the carrot and not highlighted text when the delete key is pressed, and it pastes next to and not over highlighted text as well. So I don't understand why people would call this a bug. Microsoft actually properly emulated Emacs, it's just not to some people's liking...

Upvotes: 0

Nathan
Nathan

Reputation: 3920

This is driving me crazy too! (I'm using VS 2005)

I fixed issue # 2 by adding a delete key shortcut to the Edit.EmacsDeleteSelection command, and another one for backspace-- so I can select something and hit backspace or delete to delete the selected text.

But I am stumped on issue #1. If I start typing over a selection or paste over a selection, it just inserts at the end.

FWIW, others have noticed the issue too, and reported it was filed and classified as a "Won't Fix" bug report. Oh! AbbyF, that must be you :)

Upvotes: 0

Related Questions