What is with copy and paste?
 

I have used Linux for four years now. I have been able to adapt to just about every change that came by. For example, when GNOME decided to swap the OK and CANCEL buttons in dialogs, it took me only a couple of days to adapt to the change. There is one system in Linux that I have not become accustomed to: copy and paste. The developers seem to have ignored that fact that there are:

1. Many reasons that a person would highlight a portion of text, besides for the exclusive purpose of sending it to the clipboard. These other uses of highlighting a portion of text often come into conflict with the copy and paste feature.
2. Many reasons that a person would use the middle mouse button, besides for the purpose of pasting the last item in the clipboard. These other uses of highlighting a portion of text often come into conflict with the middle-click to paste feature.

Developers have been improving the clipboard. Gone are the days when you couldn't copy and paste between a GNOME and a KDE application. However, for an operating system that is focused on choice, users do not have any choice in regards to how such a fundamental tool works.

Copy and Pasting by simply highlighting and middle clicking is one of the many features of Linux that I can't live without. When I use a Windows machine, I find myself having to redo everything because I haven't right clicked and clicked copy before switching applications.

What is faster: Highlight, switch application and middle click OR Highlight, right click, click copy, switch application, right click, click paste ??

Having said that, I don't see why it shouldn't be configurable.

--Ian

I don't like the highlight/middle click. I have a laptop w/ a touchpad, and any time I highlight something, then accidentally move my finger over too far to the right(triggering the scrollbar) it pastes what ever I highlighted where I'm typing, it bothers me!

Does anyone know if any operating systems, besides Macintosh and Windows, have another method for copying and pasting, besides the two mentioned here?

Re: What is with copy and paste?
 

Do you have some examples, I can't think of any conflicts.

I prefer the highlight-middleclick over the ctrl-c, ctrl-v just because it's faster.

I've only ever used ctrl-c and ctrl-v habitually....

except that in the console(Konsole, et al) the ctrl-c doesn't copy anything that's highlighted, it kill the running job. This is annoying becuase if you're trying to caputre the output from a running job(or from a vi <text file>) you can't, becuase it kills it(either the job, or vim.).

microsoft/linux: you can copy text from clipboard into any console with Shift+Insert.

Now regarding copy and paste in Linux... I am a Windows convert and I was used to the Windows way of copy and pasting. I hated the Linux/*NIX way of doing copy and paste (partly because I didn't had a 3 button mouse at that time), but I got used to it. I find it very quick and efficient. Now I kind of hate the Windows way of doing copy-paste. It's really slow.

What I miss in Linux is the ability to copy a image from an application like Paint and be able to copy the image in OpenOffice for example. This is the really nice thing about Windows. You can copy-paste anything into anything from anything.

Even in the case of Windows, only apps which supported OLE (Object Linked and Embedding) could transfer data from one another regardless of the format. For example although you could paste a "Paint" document into MS-Word, could you do the reverse? Paste a Word document into MS Paint? So OLE-unaware apps cannot exchange data except plain text through the clipboard. Only plain textual data is totally interchangeable without a special mechanism.

Is there any way to turn off the highlight/middle click copy/past function? It's really bothersome(since I have a touchpad on my laptop). Please?

In the console world that behaviour is controlled by a little app called gpm.
I don't know whether it has anything to do with the GUI world, though.

However, I really think that this is a very good feature.
I often forget to click on "Copy" in the Windows and Mac worlds, too :D

control c > control v all the way! :D

or cp file to location :D in the terminal/konsole

select text to copy and middle click to paste is one of the things I miss the most when using Windows, but then again the only reason I select text is to copy it.

For those with only two mouse buttons in X you can set the Emulate3Buttons option so pressing both left and right buttons together you achieve a middle click.

I voted for the one that said "its fine as it is", though I suppose there is no harm in having it configurable

There seems to be an issue I have. That, unlike Windows, the clipboard does not seem to be (not sure how to word this) -- 'perpetual'. That is, if I have copied something in an application (such as KWrite), and have closed that application, the text is gone.

Also, many apps aren't as responsive to the old Ctrl+C Ctrl+V. I've had instances where I had to activate a window several times and press Ctrl+C several times to get it to record the text.

It's really the little things that get to you...

The middle button for copy&paste is good but there is a strange problem. If I select text, goto another app, I want to select text and replace it with the text of the first time I have selected.

Also sometimes I want to scroll with the middle button instead of copying&pasting text.

I preffer this to be configurable.