improve PRIMARY buffer copy-paste behaviour, paste over

[elektra at markus-raab.org]

Hello,

I fully support this proposal as I use the PRIMARY buffer very
frequently and also think of it as a unique selling point.

Today I had a situation where replacement of the text clearly would have
been the more sensible choice (I wanted to replace one word with
another). I would have discovered the feature in this situation.

In general, my feeling is that the PRIMARY buffer degraded a lot during
the years. In many cases it does not work anymore (primary offenders:
vim (with mouse option now default), web browsers). IMHO putting some
attention to this topic would not harm.

A reference implementation sounds like a good next step.

best regards,
Markus

Am 16.03.20 um 01:44 schrieb Johannes Thrän:
> On Thu, Mar 12, 2020 at 7:07 AM Thiago Macieira <thiago at kde.org
> <mailto: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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Ganz liebe Grüße,
-- 
Markus Raab          http://www.complang.tuwien.ac.at/raab/
TU Wien                   markus.raab at complang.tuwien.ac.at
Compilers and Languages          Phone: (+431) 58801/185185
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