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

Question

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

Answer 1

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 :)

Answer 2

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...

Answer 3

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.