Re: reforming gpbs

[Fred Kiefer]

Hi Alexander,

Alexander Malmberg wrote:
> Aredridel wrote:
> > One thing that, I think, would make selections more useful is actually
> > using SECONDARY:
> >
> > If the destination of the paste-from-selection (middle-mouse) event is
> > within the boundary of the PRIMARY selection, then replace the selection
> > with the contents of SECONDARY if it exists.  If your app loses PRIMARY,
> > put that into SECONDARY instead.
>
> Note that gpbs, when compiled for a backend that uses -x11 for the
> server, tries to map the OPENSTEP pasteboard system to the X system. The
> actual OPENSTEP pasteboard system is different, and has no concept of
> PRIMARY or SECONDARY.
>
> The "current selection"/middle-click thing in -gui is just a hack, and
> it interacts poorly with several other things in -gui. I'm very
> sceptical of keeping it at all.

I did not reply to this mail as at that time there were more pressing 
problems with the X pasteboard interaction, still I am quite curious, 
why you think that the middle click handling in GNUstep is a hack and 
should be removed. For me the middle mouse is the most used copy-paste 
mechnism and I really want to keep it. Not just because I did implement 
it myself, but because for a lot of old-timers this is the one mechanism 
they are used to. (When I started to use GUIs on Unix systems this was 
the only working way to copy stuff)

I do understand that copying the selection to the pasteboard every time 
may waste precious clock cycles. What I could live with is a user 
default that would allow to switch off the selection mechanism for those 
newbies that have learned copy and paste with menu items or short cut keys.

Cheers
Fred