improve PRIMARY buffer copy-paste behaviour, paste over

[Tom Cowell]

I've been lurking on this list for years, now I'm breaking my silence to
say I like this idea.

Cheers
Tom

On Thu, 5 Mar 2020 21:24 Johannes Thrän, <johannes.thraen at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I'd like to spark a little improvement to the 'standard' regarding PRIMARY
> buffer copy-paste behaviour (aka middle mouse button paste, aka selection
> buffer).
>
> One of the reasons why many consider middle mouse paste useless is, that
> one can't replace currently selected text with middle mouse paste.
> This could be possible though, if we'd sharpen (not change) the
> recommended behaviour like this:
>  - the PRIMARY buffer is only updated on left button up events
>  - a text selection is replaced by the contents of the PRIMARY buffer when
> a middle click is registered within it
>
> To 'paste over' a text selection, one would have to: mark, hold click left
> mouse, middle click.
>
> I know that sounds awkward and middle mouse paste is considered legacy by
> many. But still many use it, it was ported to wayland. We can as well try
> to make the behaviour more useful.
> I propose above concretization to the de facto copy-paste standard found
> here:
>
>
> https://specifications.freedesktop.org/clipboards-spec/clipboards-latest.txt
>
> I tried said 'paste over' maneuver in a few common applications. Almost
> all of them behaved differently :). So no silently agreed upon behaviour
> would be broken.
> If these changes make it to the document, I try to help implementing it in
> some widgets.
>
> What do you think?
>
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