[Geany] Middle mouse click for quick pasting

[Lex Trotman]

On Wed, Jan 25, 2012 at 12:07 AM, Nate Bargmann <n0nb at n0nb.us> wrote:
> * On 2012 24 Jan 05:04 -0600, Lex Trotman wrote:
>> I think you are right, the unix system has been screwed up by trying
>> to emulate the windows system on top of it and no-one is sure what
>> anything is supposed to do, and no-one is sure what the "correct"
>> behavior is (except its whatever I say :) or whatever todays GTK nerd
>> thinks who wasn't born when Unix worked right.
>> </rant2>
>
> Heh!  Agreed.
>
> Along the same lines a thread popped up on Debian User this morning
> regarding clipboard issues:
>
> http://lists.debian.org/debian-user/2012/01/msg01828.html
>
> A followup included this link from JWZ's site:
>
> http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.html
>
> If I read Jamie's description correctly, what we are seeing happen is
> applications not holding onto the Primary selection when they should.
> This may well be a GTK issue and beyond Geany's/Scintilla's control.
>

I think it is currently working right, primary is the *current*
selection, which is nothing if you de-select.  You will note that
primary is *not* copied, only clipboard is copied and so is still
available when it has been de-selected.

The confusion is that some applications (firefox for eg) copy primary
as well and continue to make it available after it has been
de-selected, remember its the sending application that is responsible
for saying whats in a selection.

Or some users may be (unknowingly?) running clipboard managers in
their desktops that do the same.  IIUC XFCE is one of those.

GTK may have changed behavior too, although I can't find it in the
release notes YMMV.

The third complication is that pastes between scintilla and scintilla
don't go through the clipboard, so they can escape the clutches of the
X selection/clipboard system and so can behave differently from the
rest of the platform.  Also Scintilla documentation explicitly states
that the selection is nothing if nothing is highlighted, but that
doesn't follow if you repeatedly middle paste.

In summary, there are too many things getting their fingers in the pie
to be sure what is in control without a lot of effort, and it can be
different on different distributions and with different user desktop
configurations.  I definitely don't think we should be getting our
fingers in the mix as well.

Cheers
Lex