Re: Primary selection thoughts

["Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro" <gjc inescporto pt>]

On Wed, 2005-07-27 at 15:15 +0200, Jochen Baier wrote:
> >
> >
> >  Everyone knows mozilla/firefox have broken selection handling.  The
> >'primary selection' should always reflect what is currently selected in
> >an X display.  There is only one 'primary selection', thus only one
> >application is allowed to have something selected at any given time.
> >Firefox doesn't follow these rules; firefox is broken.  Not matter how
> >many users an application has, it should not be allowed to change rules
> >that are more than a decade old.
> >
> >  
> >
> 
> hi,
> 
> my opinion is: if you can only paste with the mouse you should only 
> select it with the mouse,
> primary selection has nothing to do with keyboard.
> and maybe has firefox shown, that its approach is better ?

  My main gripe about firefox is that it changes PRIMARY to its
selection.  But doesn't remove the selection when PRIMARY is lost.
There is a protocol, and firefox is only compliant with half of it.  If
firefox doesn't care about PRIMARY, then it should not touch it.  It is
confusing for the end users aware of PRIMARY the fact that there can be
two applications with selection at the same time, although only one of
them has the _real_ X selection (but which one?).

> 
> simple testcase:
> 
> Google search input field has old content, now you would like to insert 
> a new string found in a web page
> you select it with the mouse...and now you have  big problem (if you use 
> a gtk based web browser ,))
> selecting with the mouse is not an option - will replace the string. you 
> can paste it at the end of the old content and edit the hodgepodge, mmh 
> its possible but.... or you can press Control-A -Del. (of course a 
> shortcut to delete it directly would be best, but there is no standard 
> at all)

  You can use Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V to use CLIPBOARD instead of PRIMARY, in
this case.  Personally, I use both PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD copying in
differerent contexts.  Sometimes one is more convenient, sometimes the
other.

  Argh!... just noticed damned Evolution has the same problem as
firefox... ;|  Selecting on composer body, then selecting on subject
entry doesn't make composer selection disappear; but selecting first in
the subject entry then on composer, makes entry selection disappear like
it should.

  Regards.

-- 
Gustavo J. A. M. Carneiro
<gjc inescporto pt> <gustavo users sourceforge net>
The universe is always one step beyond logic