In current emacs (24.3) select-active-regions is set to t by default. The reply insertion code sets the region to the quoted message to make it easy to delete (kill-region or C-w). These two things combine to put the quoted message in the primary selection. This is not what the user wanted and is a privacy risk (accidental pasting of the quoted message). We can avoid some of the problems by let-binding select-active-regions to nil. This fixes if the primary selection was previously in a non-emacs window but not if it was in an emacs window. To avoid the problem in the latter case we deactivate mark. One key test (which fails under many simpler "fixes") is: open emacs 24.3 with notmuch, open 2 windows (viewing different notmuch buffers), highlight some text in one, and then reply to a message in the other. In many of my earlier attempts to fix this big this test fails. --- This problem was first discussed in the thread starting with jrollins bug report in id:87vc1y6fbr.fsf@servo.finestructure.net. I couldn't persuade the fixes mentioned in id:87hadh934c.fsf@qmul.ac.uk to work in all cases. The most difficult case to fix was when emacs already had a highlighted section. The simpler fixes mentioned did fix the case when the primary selection was in some non-emacs window (eg an xterm). Unfortunately there are lots of cases that need checking: differnent versions of emacs (at least 23 and 24), the various settings of select-active-regions (nil, t, 'only), does cutting the quoted message work, and possibly the various setting affecting whether cut text goes in the primary-selction or the clipboard. I have tested on emacs 23.4 and 24.3 on debian stable (ish) with all three possibilities for select-active-regions (note 'only was introduced in emacs 24 so is not relevant for emacs 23) Anyway, this is the best I can manage! Finally, note that I normally use emacs23 and this bug is not present there (unless the user has customised select-active-regions to t) so I have not given this patch a lot of testing. Best wishes Mark emacs/notmuch-mua.el | 19 +++++++++++++++++-- 1 files changed, 17 insertions(+), 2 deletions(-) diff --git a/emacs/notmuch-mua.el b/emacs/notmuch-mua.el index 53802d2..00cd980 100644 --- a/emacs/notmuch-mua.el +++ b/emacs/notmuch-mua.el @@ -346,10 +346,25 @@ the From: address first." If PROMPT-FOR-SENDER is non-nil, the user will be prompted for the From: address first. If REPLY-ALL is non-nil, the message will be addressed to all recipients of the source message." + +;; In current emacs (24.3) select-active-regions is set to t by +;; default. The reply insertion code sets the region to the quoted +;; message to make it easy to delete (kill-region or C-w). These two +;; things combine to put the quoted message in the primary selection. +;; +;; This is not what the user wanted and is a privacy risk (accidental +;; pasting of the quoted message). We can avoid some of the problems +;; by let-binding select-active-regions to nil. This fixes if the +;; primary selection was previously in a non-emacs window but not if +;; it was in an emacs window. To avoid the problem in the latter case +;; we deactivate mark. + (let ((sender (when prompt-for-sender - (notmuch-mua-prompt-for-sender)))) - (notmuch-mua-reply query-string sender reply-all))) + (notmuch-mua-prompt-for-sender))) + (select-active-regions nil)) + (notmuch-mua-reply query-string sender reply-all) + (deactivate-mark))) (defun notmuch-mua-send-and-exit (&optional arg) (interactive "P") -- 1.7.9.1