copy/paste for evil (emacs/vim) users

.emacs

; Improve how OS's "copy" interacts with evil mode.
; We want yank'd/kill'd text to be added to the system clipboard, w/o explicit visual text-selection (via mouse-drag, say).
; 
; The problem:
; While 'select-enable-clipboard' works find for non-evil emacs users,
; it interferes with evil/vim's `evil-change` and relatives:
; E.g. you want to replace a couple words with the clipboard,
; so you try typing "c2w cmd-V" -- BUT the c2w itself changes the clipboard
; (if `select-enable-clipboard` is set), so you end up pasting in exactly the two words
; you wanted to replace.
;
; Solution: have "cmd-C" be the *only* way that explicitly adds to the clipboard -- the most recent kill/yank.
; (So you still have to type cmd-C after a yank/kill, but at least you don't have to visually select the text-to-copy.)
;
; Note that 'paste' doesn't need any modification from default behavior, and 'cut' is moot when using evil.

; License: cc0-1.0, no rights reserved
;
; If you have improvements, please reply to this gist:
;     https://gist.github.com/ibarland/25822900b01d7cd195e037dbfda159e9


; Include the following to .emacs, following `(require 'evil)`, of course:

(setq select-enable-clipboard nil) ; We choose *not* to auto-unify emacs' killbuffer w/ OS's clipboard (nil)

(defun copy-current-kill-to-clipboard ()
  (interactive)
  (gui-set-selection 'CLIPBOARD (current-kill 0))
  )

(define-key evil-normal-state-map  [4194403] 'copy-current-kill-to-clipboard)
(define-key evil-insert-state-map  [4194403] 'copy-current-kill-to-clipboard)
; [4194403] refers to <apple>-c -- is macOS specific??
; For other OS's, if needed: run global-set-key interactively (typing the keystroke),
; and then C-x ESC ESC to see the last command.




; Things that didn't help me (but cost me a few hours of attempts):
;
; - Referring to cmd-C as "s-c" rather than `[4194403]`:
;      (setq mac-command-modifier 'super)
;   This is OS-independent,
;   …BUT it seems to un-bind other command-keys?
;
; - binding the key in the global map:
;       (define-key (current-global-map) [4194403] 'copy-current-kill-to-clipboard)
;   No effect?!  Maybe since already bound in minor-mode osx-key ?!
;
; - Following a different, easy solution suggested by Alexander Shukaev https://emacs.stackexchange.com/a/15054/14154
;        (setq evil-visual-update-x-selection 'ignore)
;   This seems to be a solution for a different, but closely-related?, problem; it didn't help me.

; If you have improvements (or fixes for the preceding points), please reply to this gist:
;     https://gist.github.com/ibarland/25822900b01d7cd195e037dbfda159e9
;
; License: cc0-1.0, no rights reserved