[Annoyances] X-Windows Copy & Paste

[John Meacham]

On Tue, Aug 19, 2003 at 11:07:58PM +0200, Kevin Krammer wrote:
> > the whole point of this excersize is to make cut-n-paste EASY and
> > FUNCTIONAL for new users.  to do that one needs to be able to answer
> > questions like
> 
> Where does Having some apps act differently make it easier?

some apps already behave differently, I am not in favor of this. my
concern was not making sure all apps act the same, but making sure it is
possible at all to get text out of those apps which cannot have a standard copy
button or keybinding for some reason.

making the apps act the same by adding a copy menu or standard
keybinding would be the preferable solution but is not always possible.

independent of the UI concerns, the main thing I wanted to make clear
was that in order to be able to be a good cut-n-paste citizen, an app
must make available some mechanism to set CLIPBOARD, not just PRIMARY.

the main reason I included having selection set CLIPBOARD as well in
xterm was that it was the easiest to implement in an Xresource change,
and did not require any change in the percieveh user interface.
adding copy/paste menu items to the ctrl-click menu's in xterm would be
another, better solution. the main point was that the current situation
where it only has the capability to set PRIMARY is unacceptable.

ensuring all apps have the ability (in some fashion, not necisarily by
just mouse selection) to set CLIPBOARD means that people can get by with
just the copy/paste menu items when available, this would be quite nice
for those migrating from the windows world who should not have to learn
about middle-click. the presence of apps which only have the ability to
set PRIMARY means that the mouse-middle-click becomes a manditory skill,
rather than a optional shortcut.
        John

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John Meacham - California Institute of Technology, Alum. - john at foo.net
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