Emacs column selection/deletion?

[Zed Pobre <zed@moebius.interdestination.com>]

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    I've been trying to do something that should be reasonably simple in
Emacs (20) and I can't anything in any documentation about it.

    How do you select a number of columns in Emacs and then manipulate
them (usually I'm only interested in deleting them).  NEdit provides a
nifty little feature that allows you to hold down the ctrl key while you
select with the mouse, and that will select a rectangular region
effectively allowing column selection, and so far whenever I've needed
to chop a few columns out of a large number of lines I've exited Emacs,
entered ne, selected, deleted, and then gone back to Emacs, but it
frustrates me that I can't figure out how to get Emacs to do it.  

    Another minor (and separate) quibble I have is not being able to
find out how to get emacs to handle the C indentation my way instead of
its way.  I prefer the

void fctn(void)
{
  if (abcd == defg)
  {
    do this;
    do that;
  }
}
  
format (brace below the "if" and aligned, indentation starting after the
brace), whereas emacs likes:

void fctn(void)
{
  if (abcd == defg) {
    do this;
    do that;
  }
}

which I find less readable.  


    And while I'm at it, why does changelog mode insist on inserting
tabs on a line wrap, both breaking the formatting AND the changelog
instead of inserting spaces up to the text begin point after the * ?
I figure I must have done something wrong to get that one, since I'm
guessing a whole lot of people would have been complaining before now if
the problem were widespread, but I can't figure out what.

    Hehe, this went from a single question to a small rant :)  Still,
I'm hoping someone can figure these out for me :)

=============================================================================
Zed Pobre  <zcp@po.cwru.edu>  |  PGP key on servers, fingerprint on finger
=============================================================================
* I -like- Emacs, really, I do! 

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