Using the mouse

When you are using Emacs with the X window system, you may use the mouse for simple positioning, text deletion, and text insertion. The three mouse buttons indicate the operation to be performed, and the mouse pointer (the slanting arrow, which we'll usually just call the pointer) usually indicates the position at which to perform it. In the following, the mouse buttons are called `LB', `MB', and `RB', for left button, middle button, and right button. We'll use C-B to indicate the result of holding down ``Control'' while pushing button B.

LB

places the point and mark at the position (and in the buffer) indicated by the pointer. You may then drag the mouse with LB depressed; this leaves the mark at the point you pressed LB and moves the point (and cursor) to the point at which you release LB, thus defining a new current region.

RB

first extends the current region to include all the text between the existing current region (or the point, if there is no current region) and the pointer. Next, it the text in the current region into the kill buffer, as for M-w above. When clicked twice for the same text, it also deletes the text. Finally, it also copies the text into something called the window-system cut buffer. Text in the window-system cut buffer may be ``pasted'' (inserted) by MB, as described below, not only into Emacs buffers, but also into any other X-windows buffer.

MB

pastes (inserts) text from the window system cut buffer at the point indicated by the mouse, and puts the cursor at the beginning and the mark at the end of the inserted text. This is somewhat like a mouse version of C-y. However, since it takes its text from the window system cut buffer (common to all windows on the screen), it allows the insertion of text from or to a window other than the one running Emacs.

C-LB

Displays a menu of buffers to move to and allows you to select one (a mouse version of C-x b, described later).

You may also use the mouse to select from menus that sprout from the menu bar at the top of your Emacs screen. The content of these menus depends on the kind of buffer you are in.