Clipboard for the dummies

Maks Orlovich mo002j at mail.rochester.edu
Sat Nov 2 16:19:16 GMT 2002


> > - explicit actions like 'copy link location' set selection, even
> > if there's no text selected (I couldn't find any such action in any Gtk2
> > app to test, Havoc?)
>
> This is a very bad idea because it mixes two concepts
> seperated cleanly to allow a clear mental model to form in the user's
> mind. RMB-paste should be enough. (This feature could be optional
> "for power users" if provided at all.)

That's unfortunately simply a neccessity for interoperability in one specific 
scenario: trying to copy a link from a web-browser to a terminal that's not a 
KDE or Gnome app (i.e. usually Eterm, and probably Rxvt, Xterm, etc.) -- 
since these offer no convenient way, AFAIK, to paste CLIPBOARD. And the 
reason I am concerned about this particular case, BTW, is that a user 
reported a bug with clipboard setting that showed up in this scenario, and 
considered it important enough to do a lot of work in helping to debug it. 
Also, it can be argued that it is consistent, and that only setting CLIPBOARD 
would be inconsistent -- i.e. all the time when you select some text and do 
explicit copy, both CLIPBOARD and PRIMARY are set; but if one does it the way 
you consider proper, only CLIPBOARD is set on an explicit copy, which can be 
a surprise. 






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