[Geany] Middle mouse click for quick pasting

[Nate Bargmann]

* On 2012 24 Jan 02:38 -0600, Matthew Brush wrote:

> I think the middle click is working except for the fact that for
> whatever reason now it clears the *X selection* when the Scintilla
> selection is cleared, and it didn't do this before. Those notes on
> the spec are too vague and leave out the part of whether deselecting
> text should create a new blank selection as you suggest or leave the
> contents of the last selection that was made. I have no idea about
> the X or ICCCM specs myself.

Somewhat related, perhaps not.

I am working on a wxWidgets application and am using the wxTextCtrl in
single line mode.  What I find when I tab into the control is that the
already present text is selected.  If I switch to another app, say XFCE
terminal, a middle click there pastes the text.  When I switch back to
the wxWidgets app, the selection is cleared, i.e. the text is no longer
highlighted, and switching back to the terminal and middle-clicking
results in no text being pasted--the X copy buffer has been cleared.
Ideally, I am trying to assure that the text is never selected in the
first place, but that is proving a bit of a challenge.  The Multi-line
version of wxTextCtrl does not select the text automatically, but is a
bit large for my purposes.  :-)

Back in ye olden days, as I recall, text had to be selected by the mouse
using the left button along with mouse movement for the text to be
copied to the X buffer--selecting text with the keyboard did not copy it
to the X buffer although the toolkit's provided buffer could be copied
into with an accelerator key/menu selection.  Then clearing the text by
deleting it and then clicking elsewhere in the app and finally
middle-clicking pasted the text.  The buffer would retain that text
until a new selection was made.  At least that's how I recall it used to
be done.

<rant>
The newer desktops and GUI toolkits seem to have mucked with this enough
that it seems as though I don't know what will remain in the X buffer
and what will be in a toolkit's copy buffer.  Therefore apps like XFCE's
Clipman and KDE's clipboard manager are essential, especially with
Firefox's address bar.  As I see it, this whole paste buffer issue has
become a bit of a roullette wheel over the past several years and is not
just limited to Geany.  While I happily left the look of Motif apps
behind, I don't recall these sorts of text buffer issues with them.  I
will say this, getting used to the availability of the X buffer over the
years, I find it a real limitation when it is not available on other
platforms, i.e. MS Windows.
</rant>

- Nate >>

-- 

"The optimist proclaims that we live in the best of all
possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true."

Ham radio, Linux, bikes, and more: http://www.n0nb.us