[ILUG] X clipboard weirdness

[Timothy Murphy]

On Sunday 18 April 2004 14:35, Dermot McGahon wrote:

> > What _exactly_ is the "normal X selection middle-click"?
>
> PRIMARY X selection as provided for by the X Protocol
> Version 11, Revision 0, Release 6.
>
> http://www.msu.edu/~huntharo/xwin/docs/xwindows/selection.pdf

I looked at this paper, but as far as I could see it never explains
precisely what is meant by PRIMARY, SECONDARY and CLIPBOARD selection.
It is full of the usual XWindows verbiage about clients and servers,
but if there is anything a normal human could understand I missed it.

But assuming PRIMARY selection means highlighting the text with the mouse,
and then using the middle button to paste it to a second window,
I just tried copying the last 2 lines from this kmail window
to another konsole window, and it did not work.

I tried pasting the same lines to an xterm window,  and it did work.

Also I tried pasting to the konsole window again,
but this time I went to the Clipboard (klipper)
and chose this excerpt from several given there -
though it was already indicated with a tick -
clicked on the entry in the Clipboard,
and now it pastes in the konsole window.

I have read many explanations (like yours)
claiming that PRIMARY or SECONDARY selection always works,
but in my experience these are just pipe dreams.


-- 
Timothy Murphy  
e-mail (<80k only): tim /at/ birdsnest.maths.tcd.ie
tel: +353-86-2336090, +353-1-2842366
s-mail: School of Mathematics, Trinity College, Dublin 2, Ireland