A good solution would be for X11 to check when the clipboard was
filled...and if X11 has been the front app since then, to not fill the
X11 clipboard with the Aqua clipboard when switching from an Aqua app to
X11.
... this I like. Basically, keep the most recent clipboard item.
I think this is probably the best option. I do like having PRIMARY not
overwrite the MacOS clipboard.
Another solution would be to tie the X11 clipboard to the Aqua
clipboard...so the Aqua clipboard would be filled with X11 goodness on a
select in X11, instead of requiring the user to press command-C. I can
see the appeal of two clipboards (one within X11 and one within Aqua),
but the notion of storing the Aqua clipboard while still clicking and
pasting around in X11 does seem kind of inelegant...and the "select is
copy when you're in X11" rule is very likely intuitive for those who use
X11 a fair amount; new users of X11 who do so under Mac OSX would
probably figure it out pretty quickly anyway.
Ok, but you're not talking about the X11 clipboard, you're talking about
the X11 PRIMARY selection, which is something completely different :(
...right. But in the X11 app, PRIMARY is functioning as the clipboard. In
X11 on boxes running a single window manager (which most of the x11
intuitions are probably stemming from), PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD are
synonymous...whereas the trick in OSX is how to "intuitively" allow them to
be synonymous within X11.app but not outside it.
I'm glad to see so much enthusiasm here -- it's clear that copy & paste
issues are the #1 usability concern with X11.app.
Also, when I set my "Applications menu" to alias cmd-N to make an xterm -fg
white -bg black -sl 1500, I have no idea why it sometimes applies to the
default xterm launched when I open x11.app and sometimes doesn't. It's
pretty easy to ^D and cmd-N the few times I start X11, though, so it's a
distant #2 usability issue. =)
It's also clear to me that
1) X11.app has some specific rules for copy and paste logic that are not
always intuitive or even correct. When should data be transferred from one
of the X11 buffers to the Aqua pasteboard? And vice versa?
X11 buffer to Aqua should happen immediately on cmd-C, I think is the
consensus of everyone on this list. Whether it should happen on select
(i.e., without the cmd-C being necessary) is an open question.
Aqua to X11 pasteboard should, IMO, happen only when the contents of the
Aqua buffer have never been transferred to the X11 pasteboard. If the open
question above is answered as "yes," though, it becomes irrelevant.
--Adam
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