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List:       kde-look
Subject:    The Copy/Paste Problem
From:       Sergej Malinovski <sergej () nospam ! dk>
Date:       2001-03-09 14:34:10
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Henry Stanaland wrote:
> Actually, what I've read is that we've got it all wrong.  Cut, Copy &
> Paste is supposed
> to work like in Windows.  Middle Clicking is ONLY supposed to paste
> whatever text
> has been selected, NOT what is in the clipboard.

What we have here is two solutions applied to one problem at once. Because 
this doesn't lead to a direct conflict, it works, but works like you no 
developer solving this problem would dream of. While there is no direct 
conflict, the two solutions share quite a bit of functionality. It is, to say 
very brief, very very confusing.

What you are saying is to have more than one copy/paste buffer. I don't use 
Netscape, but I use Emacs that has it's own buffer (for the historic pre-X 
reasons) and that's what I prefare.

With your "solution" what we will have, is again two solutions to one 
problem! The sitiuation will be exactly as I described above, but without the 
sharing of functionality. Will it be just as confusing? Yes! Will it be both 
less and more confusing. Less because we could just forget about the the 
middle button and what it does. More because of the introduction to another 
copy/paste buffer!

If I copy something with a copy function, I want to able to paste it with any 
paste functions. Otherwise there is will be no apparent consistency for the 
user (there will be underlying consistency that says "mouse copying is 
special"). There should be only one buffer for all X apps.

Before I go on what we eventually could do to solve all this, I would like to 
know if anyone (dis)agrees with me on the one buffer paradigm (and the 
problems with multiple buffers).

-- 
Sergej Malinovski [http://dreamer.nitro.dk]

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