Re: Copy/Paste

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Bill Gradwohl wrote:

Sometimes this works, and other times it doesn't. In general, I can't
figure out where the "clipboard" is that holds the copied text, and what
causes the inconsistent operation. Is it Gnome, OO, X, me? What is
causing the seemingly random operation?

This page describes some of the details:
http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.html

The first part of the page explains the X mechanisms in general.

Basically, you should know that there's a difference between the "select and middle-click" and the "Copy -> Paste" mechanisms. The difference isn't so much in their implementation, but that they grab different clipboard contents. The former uses the "primary" selection, and the latter uses the "clipboard" selection.

The other thing you should be aware of is that for memory and network efficiency, the clipboard isn't in the X server. Instead, the clipboard is in the application that last copied data. When an application requests a paste operation, it asks the X server which application has the clipboard, and then asks that application for the clipboard contents.

If I copy from the terminal window and then paste it back into the same
terminal window, or a new terminal window, it works. However, there is
no Paste option available in OO at times.

That's probably because there is no clipboard selection. The paste operation will only use the clipboard selection. If you highlight text in any application, you create a context for the primary selection, but the clipboard selection will only be available after you explicitly ask the application to "copy" the highlighted information.

If I open up an emacs editor,
I can paste that text into its scratch window. Why won't OO see the same
clipboard area?

Emacs is particularly confusing with regards to its use of primary selection, because it may overlap with emacs' own internal kill-ring history.

The second part of the above referenced page describes how Emacs and XEmacs use the X copy and paste mechanism, and how those two programs differ.

I've also noticed that if I copy from a particular window (terminal
window) and then close that window, that the copied text also
disappears. That seems to say that the copied text is somehow connected
to the window from where it came and there is no central clipboard.

That's right.


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