Re: Back to copy/paste.
Re: Back to copy/paste.
- Subject: Re: Back to copy/paste.
- From: "Adam D. I. Kramer" <email@hidden>
- Date: Wed, 16 Apr 2008 13:16:19 -0700 (PDT)
On Wed, 16 Apr 2008, Ben Byer wrote:
and other X11 behavior (when you select something, it is copied, and if
deselected, you can still paste it until you select something else).
Are you sure about this? Specifically, note that there are two different
mechanisms inside of X11 for what we'd call copy and paste.
The consistent behavior I find is this:
- Select something in an xterm. This is now copied within X11, and you can
paste it into other windows.
- If you then push command-C, the promise-to-copy is stored (which is
incorrect behavior, as you described in the part of your email I did not
quote)*.
- If you then paste in another cocoa app, it works.
- THEN DESELECT THE TEXT.
- It still pastes fine everywhere.
---
- Select something in an xterm, but do not push command-C.
- It pastes within X11 apps just fine.
- Switch out of the xterm, and the clipboard has whatever it had in before
you selected stuff in the xterm.
- Switch back into X11, and the clipboard is re-copied from cocoa; what you
used to have selected is not in the clipboard anymore.
- Note that regardless of whether the text was selected or not in the xterm
when you switched to the other cocoa app, it is de-selected when you
switch back into X11.
---
- Select something in an xterm, and push command-C.
- De-select it.
- It pastes within an xterm just fine (this is what you seemed surprised
about)
- If you leave X11, the cocoa clipboard is BLANK*.
- If you switch back into X11, you can still paste just fine! (this may also
be surprising)
---
- Select something in an xterm, and push command-C.
- De-select it, and select something ELSE.
- The something ELSE pastes within X11
- The something ELSE pastes within other cocoa apps, even though it was not
copied*.
---
*: This is the frustrating behavior, which I consider "wrong."
Primary selection: This is what is currently selected. If you
middle-click, it gets pasted -- which is to say if nothing is selected,
nothing will get pasted.
Clipboard: This is what data gets shoved into if you are in some editor
and use its Copy command.
This is actually part of the problem, because people have varying
expectations of what should happen in OS X when you hit paste in e.g.
TextEdit. Does it paste the contents of the primary selection, or of the
clipboard? Right now I think it tries to guess what you want -- if you have
something selected, it'll paste that, otherwise it'll paste the clipboard.
I have not heard of anybody that believes that if you select something and
push command-C that anything besides what you selected should be accessible
via command-V in any Cocoa app...please correct me if I'm wrong!
However, this runs contrary to your expectations (which are fair) -- do you
have any ideas for a better way to handle this?
I believe the most correct, consistent behavior would be this:
* Whenever you switch INTO X11, the Cocoa clipboard is copied into the X11
clipboard.
* Within X11, middle-click always pastes what is in the X11 clipboard.
* Within X11, if you select something, the X11 clipboard is filled with that
thing.
* Within X11, pushing command-C copies the X11 clipboard into the Cocoa
clipboard.
--Adam
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