Hi

I use Gnome Terminal a lot, and I can't get used to how copy/paste works. At work, I use putty on Windows, so I forget to copy all the time - or I select and hit Control-C, which terminates the program. I know I can use Shift-Control-C but I can't get used to it.

Is there maybe some other terminal program I can use? Or some setting somewhere?

I use konsole primarily, in a KDE desktop. I find that Gnome apps work under KDE, so you might try the reverse.

Control+c has always been "break", even in the DOS days. I can't be 100% sure, but as far as I know, the windows terminal is not different in that regard.

In most terminals, you can just select the text with the mouse, then use middle click to paste in another window the selected piece of text. You don't even need to press a key combo to copy the text, just select and middle click to paste.

You never know when you are going to need control+c, overriding it, even if your terminal allows you to trap that key combo, might not be a good idea.

Installed it, but it doesn't do copy on select. How do you change it?

I guess you didn't understand what I meant by copy on select. When I select something, I want it on the clipboard. Why else did I select it?

If that's aimed at me, that's exactly what my method does.

You select (click left and hold, more the mouse, release click), then paste (middle click). Just try. Maybe gnome-terminal is the only terminal that doesn't do this, 99.9% of them, if not 100%, do it right.

Not really, I just wish I had a terminal program that copies on select. I even tried installing putty for Linux, but it worked like the others. So maybe I need to get used to middle clicking in for example Firefox when I mean to paste from the terminal. Or maybe I need to find the right source file and see if I can change it?

I am having trouble understanding what exactly is what you want or need.

"Copy on select", to me, means "select something with the mouse and it's automatically on the clipboard". Well, that's exactly what happens when you select something in X... Maybe the thing you don't like is the way to paste? In that case, you will need to review the source for all the programs where you want to paste things.

The work of the terminal emulator ends when you release the left click after having selected the text. In that moment, the info in on the X cut buffer, the rest of the work is done by whatever application is requesting that info.

AFAIK all of them have copy on select. Paste with middle-click.

Yes, the problem then is which clipboard?

If you select something in the terminal, you can paste it with a middle click. But that seems to be a different clipboard.

I will try to rephrase the question:

I am looking for a terminal program that copies the text when I select something, without having to right click and copy, or typing some key combinations. And then I should be able to paste the text into for example Firefox, using the menus or keys.

Hmm. Then the terminal knows about the selection, and can do the same as when you Shift-Control-C right after. I might be able to figure this out...

The problem is that there are many cut buffers, 3 I think.

Some tools, like xsel, can operate on the three clipboards (xsel --help will show the relevant options).

I know of no way to unify the 3 cut buffers, there might be one, no idea. But, in this case, you could modify the source code for your terminal application so it will use one of the other two buffers instead of the primary one, or, you could modify it so it will output the selection to the three buffers. That should ensure that it would work on every application regardless of the buffer it uses.

You can install parcellite. In its preferences, you can choose to "Use primary" (the selections made when selecting) and "Synchronize clipboards". After that, you can copy with selecting, and paste with Control-V (or vice-versa), exactly as you wanted, in any application.

Muddy waters. Some relevant links

• freedesktop.org Specifications/ClipboardsWiki
• wikipedia Copy and paste
• wikipedia Clipboard (software)
• wikipedia Inter-Client Communication Conventions Manual

I installed Parcellite and it is a great program. In addition to synchronizing the clipboards it also shows history, so I can select things I had selected before. Now the different applications don't handle copy/paste differently anymore, and Gnome Terminal does copy on select for real