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#21 mouse mode by default?
I would like mouse mode to be enabled by default.
The one problem with it is that you need to use Shift-middle to paste text selected from other windows.
I think this is fixed with the base64 paste option for xterm, so try to push that to the terminal emulator maintainers again.
Also, it would also be nice to get notified that the selection has changed when someone selects something from another window. In this case, JOE should dismiss its own selection.
Querying/setting the selection is supposed to be disabled by default in xterm, as far as I understand. VTE definitely doesn't intend to implement querying the selection due to privacy concerns, and setting the selection isn't clearly free of privacy worries either; see https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=795774. Many other terminal emulators don't implement these either, presumably for similar reasons.
I don't think this should block you from switching the default behavior, though. Enabling mouse mode by default is IMHO a reasonable move. The option to disable it would still remain I assume.
JOE's selection (^KB, ^KK etc.) has been independent from X selection, and in case mouse mode is enabled, the mouse will switch from doing an X selection/paste to JOE selection/paste. The X behavior (both selecting and pasting) would still be available by pressing Shift. I don't see any problem with this, this is the behavior in any other mouse-handling terminal app.
For pasting, Shift+Insert is probably a way more convenient combo anyway than Shift+middle. Middle clicking often isn't a nice user experience. With regular mouse, the wheel easily scrolls too accidentally when middle-clicking. On laptops with touchpads, middle mouse button no longer exists in practice. Due to the influence of Mac, Windows, touchscreens etc., and followed by GNOME, the world has shifted towards having at most two, but maybe only one mouse button, rather than three.
I don't see any problem with Joe's selection remaining independent from the X selection, I think it's fine that way. In case you (or anyone) disagrees, that's fine too, merging these two into one would also result in a reasonable behavior – but I'm wondering if it should be strictly related to Joe itself handling mouse. I'd argue that these should be independent, and if merging the two buffers is required then probably ^KK, ^KB etc. highlighting should also replace the X selection, ^KC should paste from that etc. (Not my personally preferred approach, though, and is blocked by the aforemention privacy issues, but could be an option for terminals that support it – I'd just prefer this to be orthogonal to the mouse handling feature.)
Also, I'm not sure if the X selection can handle enormous amounts of data, e.g. when you select an entire giant file in Joe. Probably not, I assume X (or Wayland) has a magnitudes smaller cap than Joe.
Independently from these, addressing bug 308 would be in my opinion a real win: the default configuration would have the same keyboard-based highlighting experience than other applications. This is something where terminals could reasonably be pushed forward, and luckily there's no privacy aspect to this story.