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List:       kde
Subject:    Re: KDE (or X?) clipboard goes stupid
From:       Stephen Dowdy <sdowdy () ucar ! edu>
Date:       2017-12-09 20:17:31
Message-ID: a6dfa4bb-7406-ce22-b6c0-4bd75a555228 () ucar ! edu
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On 12/09/2017 12:47 PM, Jerome Yuzyk wrote:
> [kf5 5.38, plasma-workspace-5.10.5, Fedora 25]
> 
> My KDE/X clipboard goes astray sometimes. I Copy URL to clipboard from KMail, 
> for example, and when I paste I get something from a day ago pasted.
> 
> Is there any way to reset that clipboard without restarting X or KDE? I'm not 
> talking about Klipper, but the default clipboard.
> 
> 

There's a lot of "cut/paste" mechanisms in play.

X11 has a Primary and Secondary buffer, but there's also a Clipboard.
selecting text via mouse in something like xterm puts that text into the Primary \
buffer. Using CTRL-C/V uses the Clipboard.  (this is all generalizations).

You can use a tool like 'xsel' or 'xclip' to manipulate all three of those buffers:
To see what's in each buffer:

    for buf in primary secondary clipboard; do printf "\n[${buf}]\n"; xsel -o \
--${buf} ; done; printf "\n"

'xclipboard' monitors and caches clipboard content as applications store stuff there, \
so you can recall previous versions. (it's got some scrolling display issues, so you \
might have to move the cursor around to see things well)

Conceptually, i like klipper, because it allows actions to be defined.

This allows me to almost emulate what CDE (Common Desktop Environment) used to have \
which was the Deskset Tools text-menu stuff (a file you could configure to hold a \
hierarchy of named transformation actions).  I used that to {in,out}dent selections 4 \
chars, Uppercase/LowerCase selections,  Reflow text in a buffer, etc.

However, in practice, Klipper, especially in KDE Plasma 5 has been "problematical" \
for me.  I tend to use the standalone klipper application and turn off the plasma \
builtin one.

But, yesterday, i ran into *thunderbird* no longer being able to operate on the \
selection or clipboard buffers (i thought it was klipper acting up).

Restarting thunderbird fixed that problem.

Klipper has an option to "synchronize" the clipboard with the primary selection.  \
sometimes this also causes grief.  You may want to check that if you have klipper \
enabled.  (it may be messing with you)

--stephen


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