From: Simon Wistow Date: 18:08 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: terminals and urls and copying Terminals seem to be another of those things that you'd think would be really simple (display text and, err, that's about it) but are actually a bottomless pit of hate situated in the Mountains of Loathing, deep within the steamy Destest Jungle on the Island of F&*CKINGPIECEOFSHIT!!@$% This has been documented elsewhere. There is much hate to be mined from that pit. It would be greedy, nay foolish to mine it all at once. I shall instead hack off a sliver of purest hate and cray it back from the pit, over the mountains, through the jungle and row away from the island merely to deliver it to you, my fellows Haters. This Hate, and a succulent morsel it is too, is concerned with urls in terminals. Some terminals highlight a URL that scrolls past and allow you to double click on it and it will be loade din a browser. They ones that do that have, in my experience, many other, often unrelated hates which preclude's their use. But thi is fine since I can just highlight the URL like so and switch to my other window and paste it into my browser's URL bar. No great hardship. But wait! What's this? I have pasted blank *cough* I go back. I look again. Oh, I see, it was in an IRC window and somebody has said something so the line I highlighted has moved up. CLEARLY THIS MEANT THAT YOU SHOULD CLEAR THE CLIPBOARD. YOU PIECE OF SHIT. There may be technical reasons why it does this. I care not. I just want to be able to copy something out of scrolling window (tailing a log, output of a make, etc etc) without having to do some insane dance. *sigh*
From: Yoz Grahame Date: 18:23 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying Simon Wistow wrote: > There may be technical reasons why it does this. I care not. I just want > to be able to copy something out of scrolling window (tailing a log, > output of a make, etc etc) without having to do some insane dance. Easily the nicest solution to this I've seen is in the Windows MUSH/MOO client SimpleMU, which will stop scrolling as soon as you select any text, but will indicate the arrival of new text below by: a) a flashing down-arrow in the bottom-right corner b) the scroll bar moving upwards as the buffer grows below it PuTTY is nearly as good, in that it will freeze any scrolling while you're selecting, and the selected text will stay in the copy buffer even if it scrolls offscreen. -- Yoz
From: Simon Wistow Date: 18:29 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 06:23:15PM +0000, Yoz Grahame said: > PuTTY is nearly as good, in that it will freeze any scrolling while > you're selecting, and the selected text will stay in the copy buffer > even if it scrolls offscreen. Funny that the OS/GUI without the reliance on terminals and the sane C(opy|Cut) and Paste model gets it right but the CLI dependent one with the wank model doesn't.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 18:47 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying > [...] the sane C(opy|Cut) and Paste model [...] There are no sane copy-paste models. There are just different kinds of pain. We hates them all, we does.
From: Luke A. Kanies Date: 19:40 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Peter da Silva wrote: > There are no sane copy-paste models. There are just different kinds of pain. I was intrigued by BeOS's later model, which provided a protocol for the copiee and copier to agree on a format for pasting based on MIME (text/plain, text/html, etc.). I never really had problems with it, but it was a later addition and thus didn't get beaten on much.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 20:53 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying > I was intrigued by BeOS's later model, which provided a protocol for the > copiee and copier to agree on a format for pasting based on MIME > (text/plain, text/html, etc.). I never really had problems with it, but > it was a later addition and thus didn't get beaten on much. ISTR BeOS uses the same annoying WinMac half-mouse-half-keyboard model that keeps me from being able to shove the keyboard out of the way when I need to reclaim desk space. What it does under the covers with MIME types or creator codes or file extensions? that's an implementation detail. AFAICT they're all using the moral equivalent of MIME under the covers, and not an olive loaf in site.
From: Luke A. Kanies Date: 21:42 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Peter da Silva wrote: > ISTR BeOS uses the same annoying WinMac half-mouse-half-keyboard > model that keeps me from being able to shove the keyboard out of > the way when I need to reclaim desk space. Hmmm, it never occurred to me to want copy/paste without using a keyboard. Can you not right click a selection? I just consider selection to be so fundamentally different from copying that I would never want them equated (as they halfway are in X), and the way that X works makes me especially upset. How would you do keyboardless copy/paste without just depending on selection? How would you use this to select some text, cut it, select some other text, and paste in? I think right-clicking selections would be sufficient, although (as I'm sitting at an X box) I don't know if this works anywhere right now. > What it does under the covers with MIME types or creator codes or > file extensions? that's an implementation detail. AFAICT they're all > using the moral equivalent of MIME under the covers, and not an > olive loaf in site. Well, the cool thing about Be's implementation that really moved it beyond just a detail was that the sending and receiving apps could essentially agree on the most sophisticated, appropriate format: Can't take text/html? I can do text/plain if necessary, or text/rtf, or whatever. You can do more than just image/bitmap? Great, layered copies would be cool. Like I said, though, it wasn't long lived, so apps didn't really get the opportunity to really take advantage of it and find its problems.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 22:37 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying > Hmmm, it never occurred to me to want copy/paste without using a keyboard. > Can you not right click a selection? If context menus weren't under the control of applications that make such a hash out of consistently providing appropriate ones, that would probably be OK, but they're not. In my ideal GUI, the application would provide a list of menu items and enable-disable events, and the display manager would handle presenting them and selecting which ones were in the context menu under the guidance of the end-user. The display manager would also be responsible for the presentation of most other standard controls, and any developer who tried to fake them by using bitmaps without an airtight technical case would get to experience JWZ's audio-cock technology. > I just consider selection to be so > fundamentally different from copying that I would never want them equated > (as they halfway are in X), and the way that X works makes me especially > upset. How would you do keyboardless copy/paste without just depending on > selection? There's lots of options: drag-and-drop the selection, maintain a clipboard stack, use button 3 to copy or paste depending on the selection status, use a context menu (paste selection), etc etc etc... Oh, yes, you'd have a three-button mouse with a Xerox-style layout (select, alternate select, menu). > How would you use this to select some text, cut it, select > some other text, and paste in? Depending on how the stack works: Select, select, pop the selection stack, paste. Select, push the selection stack, select, pop the selection stack. > Well, the cool thing about Be's implementation that really moved it beyond > just a detail was that the sending and receiving apps could essentially > agree on the most sophisticated, appropriate format. Other than X11, doesn't everyone do this?
From: Luke A. Kanies Date: 22:50 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Peter da Silva wrote: > If context menus weren't under the control of applications that make such > a hash out of consistently providing appropriate ones, that would probably > be OK, but they're not. Yeah, but imagine: if interfaces were consistent, this list might not even exist. The horror! > In my ideal GUI, the application would provide a list of menu items and > enable-disable events, and the display manager would handle presenting them > and selecting which ones were in the context menu under the guidance of the > end-user. The display manager would also be responsible for the presentation > of most other standard controls, and any developer who tried to fake them > by using bitmaps without an airtight technical case would get to experience > JWZ's audio-cock technology. You've obviously thought about this aspect of desktops more than I. I tend to get most pissed about the total lack of metadata management. > There's lots of options: drag-and-drop the selection, maintain a clipboard > stack, use button 3 to copy or paste depending on the selection status, > use a context menu (paste selection), etc etc etc... > > Oh, yes, you'd have a three-button mouse with a Xerox-style layout (select, > alternate select, menu). Okay, I see. > > How would you use this to select some text, cut it, select > > some other text, and paste in? > > Depending on how the stack works: > > Select, select, pop the selection stack, paste. Ugh. > Select, push the selection stack, select, pop the selection stack. This would be much better. > > Well, the cool thing about Be's implementation that really moved it beyond > > just a detail was that the sending and receiving apps could essentially > > agree on the most sophisticated, appropriate format. > > Other than X11, doesn't everyone do this? Not that I can tell. If I select text in a web browser, does it ever get pasted as anything other than plain text? RTF or html or anything? I know that apps can paste sophisticated stuff to themselves, but can they to anything else?
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 00:47 on 25 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying > > > Well, the cool thing about Be's implementation that really moved it beyond > > > just a detail was that the sending and receiving apps could essentially > > > agree on the most sophisticated, appropriate format. > > Other than X11, doesn't everyone do this? > Not that I can tell. If I select text in a web browser, does it ever get > pasted as anything other than plain text? RTF or html or anything? I > know that apps can paste sophisticated stuff to themselves, but can they > to anything else? In Windows apps tend to be too bloody sophisticated about how much crap they're going to paste, to the point where you get a COM object containing a complete copy of your document and marshalled parameters to tell Visio or Excel or whatever to display just this bit of it in a Word document. But the same stuff pasted into Textpad is just text if text is available. I don't know if your trick would work from IE, I don't use Internet Exploder. In the Mac you've been able to do the equivalent since aproximately forever, and I've had to get myself a REAL text-only-but-still-UTF-8 editor to keep chunks of HTML pasted into the editor from turning into RTF. Your browser example works from Safari. (as you can tell, this feature is not without its own hateful aspects)
From: Yoz Grahame Date: 23:11 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying Luke A. Kanies wrote: > Well, the cool thing about Be's implementation that really moved it beyond > just a detail was that the sending and receiving apps could essentially > agree on the most sophisticated, appropriate format: Can't take > text/html? I can do text/plain if necessary, or text/rtf, or whatever. > You can do more than just image/bitmap? Great, layered copies would be > cool. Um, I may be missing something here, but hasn't Windows been doing that for ages? In Windows, I can copy a bunch of formatted text from a web browser (IE or Mozilla, doesn't matter) and paste it into a word processor (Word or OpenOffice, doesn't matter) and it retains the formatting. -- Yoz
From: Ann Barcomb Date: 23:18 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Yoz Grahame wrote: > In Windows, I can copy a bunch of formatted text from a web browser (IE > or Mozilla, doesn't matter) and paste it into a word processor (Word or > OpenOffice, doesn't matter) and it retains the formatting. ...which really annoys me. If I am trying to mail myself content from a web page, and I don't want HTML-markup in the mail (I never do), I have to paste it first in notepad, and then reselect it from notepad to insert in to Notes. Not that I'm happy with cutting and pasting in X. There's that IRC problem mentioned earlier (I use control-z if I want to paste), and I think I complained earlier about being unable to paste content from a web browser under some situations. Plus if I highlight something--like a URL--to delete it, I lose what I had in the buffer. Would it be so hard to give me just a simple vi-like buffer? - Ann
From: Yoz Grahame Date: 23:33 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying Ann Barcomb wrote: >>In Windows, I can copy a bunch of formatted text from a web browser (IE >>or Mozilla, doesn't matter) and paste it into a word processor (Word or >>OpenOffice, doesn't matter) and it retains the formatting. > > ...which really annoys me. If I am trying to mail myself content from > a web page, and I don't want HTML-markup in the mail (I never do), I have > to paste it first in notepad, and then reselect it from notepad to insert > in to Notes. But surely that's Notes's fault for not respecting your choice of plaintext mail? (And, well, just for being Notes?) -- Yoz
From: Stephen Gower Date: 10:05 on 25 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying On Wed, Mar 24, 2004 at 03:18:41PM -0800, Ann Barcomb wrote: > On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Yoz Grahame wrote: > > > In Windows, I can copy a bunch of formatted text from a web browser > > paste it into a word processor and it retains the formatting. > > ...which really annoys me. If I am trying to mail myself content from > a web page, and I don't want HTML-markup in the mail (I never do), I have > to paste it first in notepad, and then reselect it from notepad to insert > in to Notes. Or go to the "paste special" command (usually in the edit menu) and pick whatever looks best, usually "unformatted unicode text". s
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 18:40 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying > There may be technical reasons why it does this. I care not. I just want > to be able to copy something out of scrolling window (tailing a log, > output of a make, etc etc) without having to do some insane dance. Not on IRC, someone will stab you in the face over the Internet.
From: Phil!Gregory Date: 18:48 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying * Simon Wistow <simon@xxxxxxxxxx.xxx> [2004-03-24 18:08 +0000]: > I go back. I look again. Oh, I see, it was in an IRC window and somebody > has said something so the line I highlighted has moved up. > > CLEARLY THIS MEANT THAT YOU SHOULD CLEAR THE CLIPBOARD. YOU PIECE OF > SHIT. You, sir, have stolen my rant on a hate that has bothered me for quite a while now. So I'll just feed off your post. Cut-and-paste in X is so very hateful. For most apps, merely hilighting text is sufficient to put that text into the "clipboard", thus clobbering whatever was in there previously. Having a keystroke combination to do this taskand avoid accidental deletion of data would be too complicated for the designers of these programs. (And now the behaviour is standard, so no one dares change it.) But, like the fact that Unix filesystems have no undelete, one eventually gets used to it and doesn't delete important stuff more than every other month. There is, of course, more. I put "clipboard" in quotes up there. X doesn't really have a clipboard. All of the above behaviour is done with "selections". Selections are owned by individual programs, not by the X server. So when you paste from one xterm to another, the second xterm actually goes and asks the first one for its selection. If the first one has lost its data for some reason, it returns nothing. And there's no buffer in X to hold on to the text after the originating program forgets about it. (There is a selection named "Clipboard", but it workes the same way as the "Primary" selection, which is what everyone uses. The client still owns the data.) So, xterm is too dumb to keep highlighted text selected if it scrolls up the screen (even though it *knows* that it's scrolling and it *knows* exactly where the text you selected ended up) and X is too dumb to use a real clipboard and manage the data itself, so your selected text has a tendency to vanish. *Hate* More on selections can be found at http://www.jwz.org/doc/x-cut-and-paste.html
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 19:06 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying > Cut-and-paste in X is so very hateful. For most apps, merely hilighting > text is sufficient to put that text into the "clipboard", thus clobbering > whatever was in there previously. Having a keystroke combination to do > this taskand avoid accidental deletion of data would be too complicated > for the designers of these programs. Having to hit some key to actually copy some selected text is hateful. Having selected text replace what was previously selected rather than just keeping track of the last <n> selections and letting you pop, push, or otherwise molest them is hateful. How it's implemented, whether you copy to a clipboard or just keep a handle that the program can respond to, that's irrelevent. There are systems that do a physical copy when the selection is made, that do a copy if a new selection is made without pasting, that do a copy when the program wants to free its buffer, that never do a copy unless asked by a clipboard manager, and so on. They all manage to suck. > So, xterm is too dumb to keep highlighted text selected if it scrolls up > the screen (even though it *knows* that it's scrolling and it *knows* > exactly where the text you selected ended up) and X is too dumb to use a > real clipboard and manage the data itself, so your selected text has a > tendency to vanish. You're supposed to use a clipboard manager to handle that. The fact that there isn't one by default is hateful, of course, and I'll bet that if you look for one you'll hate all the ones you find you'll hate them too. I know I do.
From: Luke A. Kanies Date: 19:37 on 24 Mar 2004 Subject: Re: terminals and urls and copying On Wed, 24 Mar 2004, Simon Wistow wrote: > Terminals seem to be another of those things that you'd think would be > really simple (display text and, err, that's about it) but are actually > a bottomless pit of hate situated in the Mountains of Loathing, deep > within the steamy Destest Jungle on the Island of > F&*CKINGPIECEOFSHIT!!@$% Colors, selection, baud, control modes, stty, you name it, lotsa hate. > Some terminals highlight a URL that scrolls past and allow you to double > click on it and it will be loade din a browser. They ones that do that > have, in my experience, many other, often unrelated hates which > preclude's their use. But thi is fine since I can just highlight the URL > like so and switch to my other window and paste it into my browser's URL > bar. No great hardship. > > But wait! What's this? I have pasted blank *cough* > > I go back. I look again. Oh, I see, it was in an IRC window and somebody > has said something so the line I highlighted has moved up. > > CLEARLY THIS MEANT THAT YOU SHOULD CLEAR THE CLIPBOARD. YOU PIECE OF > SHIT. At this point I can only recommend RXVT, which has likely protected me from a significant amount of terminal hate. I have no such problem with RXVT, and seldom do I hate it (although, like all Unix things, it took me a while to get it that way, e.g., colors).
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