[lug] Cutting and Pasting..

Viggy LittleViggy at alum.manhattan.edu
Fri Mar 2 17:35:20 MST 2001


Unfortunately, I don't believe that a solution exists.  On the Windows 
platforms, "cutting and pasting" to a "system" buffer is build into the Win 
API, and every Windows program immediately started using it.  So, you have 
one common area to store basically anything you want (text, graphics, user 
defined things too).  Applications can query the clipboard to see what is 
currently in the buffer, and decide at that time whether they want to allow 
pasting of the buffer (i.e. Notepad does not allow you to paste graphic 
objects into files, therefore if there are graphics in the clipboard, 
Notepad ignores your request to paste).

About the only thing that comes close on UNIX is the middle mouse 
button.  And I've only seen that work for straight text.

Viggy

John Hernandez wrote:
 >
 > Amen.  I'm constantly frustrated by this, too.  Most of the time, when I 
don't need to hold things in the buffer for very long, I just use the 
highlight + middle button to paste trick.  But cut/copy/paste buffers seem 
far from consistent between apps.  I guess the problem stems from the basic 
UNIX philosophy of freedom to choose toolkits and so forth.  Both a 
blessing and a curse.  I won't even attempt to propose a solution.  Sigh...
 >
 > Andrew Reberry wrote:
 > >
 > > I have a gripe.  I would like a solution, but I do have a gripe...
 > >
 > > In general, I find it very difficult to cut and paste between
 > > applications.  Be it a lack of standards, but it seems that a lot of
 > > programs do not want to "work" together.
 > >
 > > Some programs use ALT-V and ALT-C key combinations, others use CTRL-X
 > > and CTRL-C.  Yet other programs use CTRL-C and CTRL-V.  I even believe
 > > I've used CTRL-Insert and SHIFT-Insert as well.  This is half the
 > > problem.  Why not the same keys, and why should I have to remember "Oh,
 > > I'm in this program and thus must use the CTRL-V key combo.
 > >
 > > The second part of the problem is what I find to be incompatible
 > > applications...
 > >
 > > Say I cut something out of Opera using CTRL-C.  I then want to paste it
 > > into netscape composer using ALT-V. The problem though is that what I
 > > cut out of Opera is not being pasted into Netscape.  Instead something
 > > I cut yesterday is being placed into Netscape.   I can't even get these
 > > two applications to talk to each other when cutting and pasting.
 > >
 > > To me this is very poor and unacceptable.  As I said, I would not mind
 > > answers, but as I see it any solution is simply a workaround to the
 > > problem.
 > >
 > > Andrew
 > > reberrya at colorado.edu




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