improve PRIMARY buffer copy-paste behaviour, paste over

[Johannes Thrän]

On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 7:07 AM Thiago Macieira <thiago at kde.org> wrote:

>
> It can probably be implemented reasonably easily. It won't be a very
> discoverable feature, though, so is it worth it?
>
>
It's is an accessibility feature, and not the least relevant one, I
suspect. So if it ever gets implemented, big desktop systems should mention
it in their accessibility dialogs. That way it'd actually becomes a bit
more discoverable.

I'm sure many know the problem. So yes, it's worth mentioning in the
'standard' - in a way that makes explicit that everything copy-paste could
be done without a keyboard. Specifically that you could paste over
previously selected text. On the contrary the document presently states:

" [...] you should be able to select text, then paste the clipboard
   over it, but that doesn't work if the selection and
   clipboard are the same [...] "

.. as a point why middle-mouse-paste is flawed, which I find biased and
misleading.


I checked a lot of programs for said desired behaviour and almost all of
them only have to implement the second point from my original mail, which
is as easy as:
  -> middle click on a text selection does the same as ctrl-v (i.e. replace
the selection, that's it.)

(I found only the 'web view'-widget of chrome would have to to do the other
point as well.)

Since the thread got a bit distracted, I summarize my arguments in a silly
bullet point list :)
 - everything copy-paste possible by means of mouse only
 - no new paradigm
 - no existing workflow breakage
 - improving a unique selling point of linux on desktop
 - half of it is required by wayland anyways and implemented by most
clients already..
 - ..the rest is very little and easy
 - accessibility feature almost for free

(I also thought of a way on how to do it with triple and more clicks
without relying on letting a timeout run out)

Can I perhaps accelerate coming to a consensus with a reference
implementation?

cheers, Johannes
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