Looking for light terminal that supports copy and paste to other applications

bbmak · 05-31-2009, 08:32 PM

I am using debian base + fluxbox.
I used to use xterm, but it does not support copy & paste. So, I use xfce-terminal.

I want to know are there any light terminal that supports copy & paste to other applications.
xfce-terminal is not light enough.

indienick · 05-31-2009, 09:29 PM

Actually, it does support "copy-and-paste", it just does not support they key-bindings you are used to using.

Shift-Delete is used for cutting text, and Shift-Insert is used for pasting text.

If I right click on a link for something in Firefox (let's say, the latest ISO of my BSD or Linux distro of choice) and select "Copy Link Location..." I can easily pop over into an Xterm, type in "wget " and then press Shift-Insert and the URL I want to download fills in.

onebuck · 06-01-2009, 07:44 AM

Hi,

I like to to setup the 'gpm';

Quote:

excerpt from 'man gpm';
gpm - a cut and paste utility and mouse server for virtual consoles
SYNOPSIS
gpm [ options ]

DESCRIPTION
This package tries to be a useful mouse server for applications running on the Linux console. It is based on the "selection" package, and some of its code comes from selection itself. This package is intended as a replacement for "selection" as a cut-and-paste mechanism; it also provides additional facilities. The "selection" package offered the first cut-and-paste implementation for Linux using two mouse buttons, and the cut buffer is still called "selection buffer" or just "selection" throughout this document. The information below is extracted from the texinfo file, which is the preferred source of information.

The gpm executable is meant to act like a daemon (thus, gpmd would be a better name for it). This section is meant to describe the command-line options for gpm, while its internals are outlined in the next section.

Due to restrictions in the ioctl(TIOCLINUX) system call, gpm must be run by the superuser. The restrictions have been added in the last 1.1 kernels to fix a security hole related to selection and screen dumping.

The server can be configured to match the user's taste, and any application using the mouse will inherit the server's attitude. From release 1.02 up to 1.19.2 is was possible for any user logged on the system console to change the mouse feeling using the -q option. This is no longer possible for security reasons.

As of 0.97 the server program puts itself in the background. To kill gpm you can just reinvoke it with the -k cmdline switch, although killall gpm can be a better choice.

rikxik · 06-01-2009, 08:44 AM

I have used mrxvt and its really lightweight, supports tabs and is completely configurable.

You can also try aterm.

bbmak · 06-01-2009, 07:26 PM

mrxvt supported copy and paste?

Quote:

Originally Posted by rikxik

I have used mrxvt and its really lightweight, supports tabs and is completely configurable.

You can also try aterm.

jamescondron · 06-01-2009, 08:15 PM

Why oh why aren't you using screen in whatever terminal you're using? I have to say, screen is the most useful tool in a terminal. It also supports copy and paste.

http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/

farslayer · 06-01-2009, 10:11 PM

Should be able to copy text from xterm by highlighting it with the mouse.
then clicking the middle mouse button to paste it where you want..

rikxik · 06-01-2009, 11:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbmak

mrxvt supported copy and paste?

Yes it does. Highlighting will automatically copy, then you can right click (or Shift+Insert) to paste.

rikxik · 06-01-2009, 11:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jamescondron

Why oh why aren't you using screen in whatever terminal you're using? I have to say, screen is the most useful tool in a terminal. It also supports copy and paste.

http://www.gnu.org/software/screen/

The OP requested for suggestions on lightweight terminal. If he is running commands from console, he can do cut/paste from console using gpm. If he needs a terminal running within X, then he FIRST needs a terminal before he can run screen

He just needs a lightweight terminal with cut/paste functionality (which IMHO almost every terminal does) - no mention of terminal multiplexer.

catkin · 09-27-2009, 09:54 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by bbmak

mrxvt supported copy and paste?

Yo (yes and no). A simple question with a complicated answer because there are so many copy and paste methods available on *n*x and the standards, even when they are not ambiguous, are not tightly adhered to. Useful links: Wikipedia page (incomplete, has useful links), Freedesktop.org's X clipboard explanation.

Here is the "yo" in detail

Yes, in that it implements the X method of copying any selection to the X PRIMARY.
No, in that the X method of using Shift+Del to cut the the selection to the X PRIMARY is used to set the window title to the selection. Makes sense -- terminal text cannot be cut.
Yes, in that it implements the X methods to paste from the X PRIMARY by centre mouse button click and by Shift+Ins.
No, in that it does not provide any reasonably direct method to copy a selection to the X CLIPBOARD. It does not have an Edit->Paste facility on the menus and the Shift+Ctrl+[CV] hotkeys implemented by some other terminal emulators are configured to paste the X PRIMARY and X CLIPBOARD.

Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V cannot be used by terminal emulators because so many programs that run in terminals depend on them.

There are tantalising references in the mrxvt documentation that suggest copy to clipboard is in development. From the man 0.5.4 page (dated January 10, 2006 so from a much earlier release): "Copy Copy selection into clipboard (not implemented)" and from the undated but probably later draft man page "CopySel: save terminal selection into clipboard".

The "Copy" action can be assigned to a hotkey ("macro" in mrxvt terminology) and produces no error at startup but when it run produces "Support for macro type 'Copy' not compiled". This was on an installation of mrxvt built using config with options --enable-everything --disable-debug.

Assigning "CopySel" to a macro results in this error at startup: "Action CopySel is not of known type.

This mrxvt limitation is inconvenient rather than a showstopper when working on one machine but it is a showstopper regards copy and paste between VirtualMachine host and guest (and probably using other virtualisation software).

There may be a workaround by configuring a macro to run a utility that transfers the contents of X PRIMARY to CLIPBOARD. I'll be investigating this (autocutsel, DDM, TomBoy, uclip, xclip, xclipboard, xfce4-clipman-plugin and xsel) and will update this thread with any useful findings. If anyone has comments on the suitability of those utilities (mustn't open a window or be "heavy") then please reply.

catkin · 09-27-2009, 03:37 PM

Solution to provide clipboard copy and paste in mrxvt posted in this Blog entry.