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List:       kde-devel
Subject:    Re: Copy and paste in KDE
From:       "Ben Schepens" <schepens () mindspring ! com>
Date:       2002-02-27 17:36:42
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> IMHO the way KDE use copy/paste is a lot easy than ctr-c and then ctr-v
method
> in winblows. In kde u can use only the mouse to copy/paste and is much
> quicker

Please keep flames on low. I am not trying to start a religious war (again),
but
I wanted to try to clearly point out some of the real big downsides of the
having the
cut/paste buffer automatically filled when text is highlighted:

1) It is easier to accidentally highlight something and lose whatever you
have in the
   buffer previously

2) If you want to do something as simple as copy a url and paste in on top
of the
   existing url in Konqueror, you have to use the delete key to manaually
delete the
   existing url before (or after) pasting the new url.  If you had to
explicitly tell the system
   to copy the highlighted text to the clipboard, then you could just
highlight the old url
   and click paste to replace it with the new url.

3) Is is impossible to copy one block of text and highlight a couple of
other blocks of
   text that are to be replaced by the newly copied text.

Yes, I know, you can use all sorts of regexp search and replace
funtionality, but many times
this approach is more techie and overkill for a few simple cut and pastes.
These sort of
simple cut and pastes happen *a lot*.

Yes, I did start from a windows world.  No, I am not of the mindset that MS
always
has the best answer.  Actually, many things they do bug me.

However, by not defaulting the highlight operation to automatically assume
you want to do
a copy of that text, it allows one to support many more operations on the
highlighted text
without always stomping on the clipboard buffer.  One could highlight text,
right click the mouse,
and get a *LIST* of options for the highlighted text, including copy, cut,
paste, spellcheck, define,
(if a url) open in browser, bold, italicize, etc.

The bottom line is, most of the time I highlight text, I *don't* just want
to copy it to the clipboard.
In fact, it is only more efficient to automatically assume this is what you
want, if it is indeed what you
want.  If you don't want the clipboard overwritten, you have *more* work to
undo the fact that
whatever you had on the clipboard is now blown away.

Bottom Line
---------------
I suspect that most people will believe strongly one way or the other.  This
probably will not change.
I recommend that KDE support both (assuming it is not a huge deal to do so).

As far as the default setting of which method to use, I would decide who the
target audience of the
distro is.  If you are trying to make it more 'common person' useful, I
would default to the
"windows" way of doing things, because that is what most people will be used
to and most people do not
want to change.

If you want a 'tech' audience, do whatever, they EASILY can change it.

AGAIN---- I am not trying to reopen a flame war, I just wanted to try to
explain why some people
have legitimate reasons to prefer a cut and paste method whereby one has to
explicitly *choose*
to cut or copy.

Ben Schepens




 
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