Hi everyone,
Regarding Geany on Linux.
I find using the middle mouse button for copy-paste operations very handy. But this does not work within one Geany session unless I first paste in another window (accepting a text copy). Why is the direct paste inhibited and can something be done to change the behaviour to standard?
Thanks for any help that you may give.
Cheers,
Gösta Ljungdahl
gostal@foi.semailto:gostal@foi.se
________________________________ Från: Gösta Ljungdahl Skickat: den 18 februari 2020 21:50:22 Till: users@lists.geany.orgmailto:users@lists.geany.org Ämne: Linux middle mouse copy and paste
Hi everyone,
Regarding Geany on Linux.
I find using the middle mouse button for copy-paste operations is very handy. But this does not work within one Geany session unless I first paste in another window (accepting a text copy). Why is the direct paste inhibited and can something be done to change the behaviour to standard?
Thanks for any help that you may give.
Cheers, Gösta Ljungdahl gostal@foi.semailto:gostal@foi.se
On 2020-04-14 9:32 a.m., Gösta Ljungdahl wrote:
Hi everyone,
Regarding Geany on Linux.
I find using the middle mouse button for copy-paste operations very handy. But this does not work within one Geany session unless I first paste in another window (accepting a text copy). Why is the direct paste inhibited and can something be done to change the behaviour to standard?
It works here on Ubuntu 19.10 with GTK+3 build in X11.
Without more information about what kind of Linux setup you have, it's hard to say. AFAIK this should work in any X11 desktop environment and probably also in some Wayland ones. I know in Gnome Tweak Tool there's an option to turn it on/off, which is defaulted to on here.
Regards, Matthew Brush
________________________________ Från: Users users-bounces@lists.geany.org för Matthew Brush mbrush@codebrainz.ca Skickat: den 17 april 2020 01:44 Till: users@lists.geany.org Ämne: Re: [Geany-Users] Linux middle mouse copy and paste
On 2020-04-14 9:32 a.m., Gösta Ljungdahl wrote:
Hi everyone,
Regarding Geany on Linux.
I find using the middle mouse button for copy-paste operations very handy. But this does not work within one Geany session unless I first paste in another window (accepting a text copy). Why is the direct paste inhibited and can something be done to change the behaviour to standard?
It works here on Ubuntu 19.10 with GTK+3 build in X11.
Without more information about what kind of Linux setup you have, it's hard to say. AFAIK this should work in any X11 desktop environment and probably also in some Wayland ones. I know in Gnome Tweak Tool there's an option to turn it on/off, which is defaulted to on here.
Regards, Matthew Brush
---
Thanks for the response, Mathew!
Currently I am running Mate 1.16 on CentOS 7.7.1908 and I have had similar experience on Linux Mint 19 Mate, OpenSuse, various versions and desktops, and Ubuntu 18.04 running Gnome 3 but after experimenting a little I realise that I have to be more precise in my question.
The thing that does not work as I want unless I first paste in another window is if I use left double click for the copy part. In Geany this operation has the effect of also moving the insert point and middle mouse click does paste in that spot but it's rather meaningless. If I left click where I want to paste the copy is gone unless I first paste in another window. If I use left click + drag for the copy part the insert point is not moved and middle mouse click pastes as expected. I just learned this but doing the copy with left double click is so much easier so I am not in the habit of using left click + drag to copy a single word but if there is no way to tweak the Geany behaviour I guess I have to get used to it.
In a terminal window or a terminal editor left double click does not move the insert point and middle mouse paste works without any intermediate step. This is the behaviour I would like to see also in Geany.
Kind regards,
Gösta Ljungdahl
_______________________________________________ Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
...
The thing that does not work as I want unless I first paste in another window is if I use left double click for the copy part. In Geany this operation has the effect of also moving the insert point and middle mouse click does paste in that spot but it's rather meaningless. If I left click where I want to paste the copy is gone unless I first paste in another window. If I use left click + drag for the copy part the insert point is not moved and middle mouse click pastes as expected. I just learned this but doing the copy with left double click is so much easier so I am not in the habit of using left click + drag to copy a single word but if there is no way to tweak the Geany behaviour I guess I have to get used to it.
Select with double left click first, then middle click where you want to paste, thats how X11 copy has always worked.
Thats how its working here in Geany, the browser editing this reply, in Linux Mint 19 xed, in eclipse even. And between them.
In a terminal window or a terminal editor left double click does not move the insert point and middle mouse paste works without any intermediate step. This is the behaviour I would like to see also in Geany.
A terminal cursor can't be moved by the mouse, you can't click half way through a partly typed terminal line to edit it. The terminal behaviour (well shell actually) was determined long before X11 even existed. Shells in terminals are not GUI things, they are mired in the 1970s, so sorry we 'aint going back there.
Cheers Lex
Kind regards,
Gösta Ljungdahl
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
"Select with double left click first, then middle click where you want to paste, thats how X11 copy has always worked."
Yes, it works!! It's my moving the cursor to the paste point that destroys the copy. Just hovering with the mouse at the desired point and then middle click is all that it takes. I have been living under the misconception that paste is always done where the cursor is and this is true for a terminal session but not for X11 and Geany in particular as I just learned. Thanks guys for educating me! 😊
Kind regards,
Gösta
________________________________ Från: Users users-bounces@lists.geany.org för Lex Trotman elextr@gmail.com Skickat: den 17 april 2020 10:37:51 Till: Geany general discussion list Ämne: Re: [Geany-Users] Linux middle mouse copy and paste
...
The thing that does not work as I want unless I first paste in another window is if I use left double click for the copy part. In Geany this operation has the effect of also moving the insert point and middle mouse click does paste in that spot but it's rather meaningless. If I left click where I want to paste the copy is gone unless I first paste in another window. If I use left click + drag for the copy part the insert point is not moved and middle mouse click pastes as expected. I just learned this but doing the copy with left double click is so much easier so I am not in the habit of using left click + drag to copy a single word but if there is no way to tweak the Geany behaviour I guess I have to get used to it.
Select with double left click first, then middle click where you want to paste, thats how X11 copy has always worked.
Thats how its working here in Geany, the browser editing this reply, in Linux Mint 19 xed, in eclipse even. And between them.
In a terminal window or a terminal editor left double click does not move the insert point and middle mouse paste works without any intermediate step. This is the behaviour I would like to see also in Geany.
A terminal cursor can't be moved by the mouse, you can't click half way through a partly typed terminal line to edit it. The terminal behaviour (well shell actually) was determined long before X11 even existed. Shells in terminals are not GUI things, they are mired in the 1970s, so sorry we 'aint going back there.
Cheers Lex
Kind regards,
Gösta Ljungdahl
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users _______________________________________________ Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
_______________________________________________ Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
On 2020-04-17 02:03, Gösta Ljungdahl wrote:
"Select with double left click first, then middle click where you want to paste, thats how X11 copy has always worked."
Yes, it works!! It's my moving the cursor to the paste point that destroys the copy. Just hovering with the mouse at the desired point and then middle click is all that it takes. I have been living under the misconception that paste is always done where the cursor is and this is true for a terminal session but not for X11 and Geany in particular as I just learned. Thanks guys for educating me! 😊
Yep, traditionally when you middle-click in X (by default) it pastes whatever is currently selected. The selection itself is the "storage" of the buffer. That's how I think of it anyway. If you move the cursor, the selection is lost and therefore later another paste yields nothing.
There are some "modern" apps that do more, for example browsers copy the clipboard contents into the middle-click buffer as well. I believe their rationale is that it is user-friendly. But, having a select few apps behave differently is confusing as well.
-Mike
This was an eye opener as I had never guessed to try this in the GUI! It works in Geany 1.29 (with Debian 9 + Mate desktop 1.16.2)
Left mouse double click on text. Token gets selected. Move the cursor to search box in the menu bar. Now middle click the mouse.
The text is appended to whatever is there.
Perhaps it would be more useful if the text was overwritten?
Geoff
On 17/04/2020 17:57, Mike Miller wrote:
On 2020-04-17 02:03, Gösta Ljungdahl wrote:
"Select with double left click first, then middle click where you want to paste, thats how X11 copy has always worked."
Yes, it works!! It's my moving the cursor to the paste point that destroys the copy. Just hovering with the mouse at the desired point and then middle click is all that it takes. I have been living under the misconception that paste is always done where the cursor is and this is true for a terminal session but not for X11 and Geany in particular as I just learned. Thanks guys for educating me! 😊
Yep, traditionally when you middle-click in X (by default) it pastes whatever is currently selected. The selection itself is the "storage" of the buffer. That's how I think of it anyway. If you move the cursor, the selection is lost and therefore later another paste yields nothing.
There are some "modern" apps that do more, for example browsers copy the clipboard contents into the middle-click buffer as well. I believe their rationale is that it is user-friendly. But, having a select few apps behave differently is confusing as well.
-Mike _______________________________________________ Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users
Replying to both Mike and Geoff,
X11 does not actually provide any clipboard, it provides messages to allow clipboard contents to be transferred between apps when one asks for it. It is entirely up to apps what they offer as clipboard contents and for them to request something on user action. Also there are three messages called, "primary", "secondary" and confusingly "clipboard" so I'll quote it.
The tradition is for the selection to be offered as "primary" on selection, and to paste "primary" on middle mouse click, but its up to apps and they need never copy the clipboard contents except to return it when requested.
But since windows invented ctrl-XCV it has become traditional for apps to offer selection to "clipboard" on ctrl-XC and to request "clipboard" and paste it on ctrl-V but its up to the apps. Clearly when ctrl-X deletes the selection it needs to be saved by the app to continue to offer it, but thats internal to the app, not something X11 does.
"Secondary" has never really been standardised and isn't used much now.
Common X11 toolkits like GTK and Qt and Wx follow that convention and (bugs aside) also follow it on Wayland, so apps using them will tend to follow the convention, but apps that don't use toolkits may do their own thing, eg browsers.
Geany uses the GTK toolkit which handles paste in all widgets except the editing window, so having paste overwrite is GTKs decision. So having dialogs overwrite on middle click is up to GTK, but I'm not sure that having different parts of an application work different to convention is a good idea, so for _once_ I agree with something GTK decided :)
Cheers Lex
On 2020-04-17 17:03, Lex Trotman wrote:
windows invented ctrl-XCV
Cool, except I don't think this part is right. The Apple Lisa arrived in 1983 after a few years of development, and had these shortcuts on the Apple-key. It copied a lot from the the Xerox Alto/Star from the late 70s, though I don't believe it had the same hotkeys. IBM soon followed in those footsteps as well, which influenced Windows 1.0:
https://www.thocp.net/hardware/apple_lisa.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access
-Mike
On Mon, 20 Apr 2020 at 06:58, Mike Miller geany-users@mgmiller.net wrote:
s/invented/popularised/ :-)
On 2020-04-17 17:03, Lex Trotman wrote:
windows invented ctrl-XCV
Cool, except I don't think this part is right. The Apple Lisa arrived in 1983 after a few years of development, and had these shortcuts on the Apple-key. It copied a lot from the the Xerox Alto/Star from the late 70s, though I don't believe it had the same hotkeys. IBM soon followed in those footsteps as well, which influenced Windows 1.0:
https://www.thocp.net/hardware/apple_lisa.html https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IBM_Common_User_Access-Mike
Users mailing list Users@lists.geany.org https://lists.geany.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/users