[comp.windows.x] XTerm Selections

sinclair@cs.glasgow.ac.uk (Duncan Sinclair) (08/09/90)

This is directed to xterm authors and hackers. (Dragon slayers?)

I've been playing around with xterm's translations and selections.

I've got two problems:

I have set up my translations to copy/paste with SECONDARY, rather than
PRIMARY when I am holding down "Shift".  This works fine, until I try to
make a primary and secondary selection in the same xterm.  Then it doesn't
seem to be able to create one selection, without destroying the other
one.  I understand that it wouldn't be able to highlight both selections.
What gives?  Can xterm only manage one value in any number of selections?

Could a client be written which would "adopt" and display dropped selections,
automatically, for all the "normal" selection names.  It could be a union
of xcutsel & xclipboard?

Second:

As I am using a Sun keyboard (type 4), I would like the "Copy" and "Paste"
key to copy a selection into the clipboard, and paste from the clipboard.

The paste bit is easy, but I cannot find a way to copy an existing selection
into CLIPBOARD.

This is what I've got at the moment:
   <Key>L8:        insert-selection(CLIPBOARD, CUT_BUFFER0) \n\
   <Key>L6:        select-end(CLIPBOARD, CUT_BUFFER0) \n\
Currently, if I hit "L6" while creating a selection, this will copy the
selection into the clipboard, but I'm looking for similar semantics
to Sun's system, where you make a selection, then hit "Copy".  I also
want it to co-exist with normal xterm "VOM" semantics.

I guess I'm really looking for an action like "copy-selection", which
would be able to copy "CUT_BUFFER0" (say) into "CLIPBOARD", sort of
like this:
   <Key>L6:       copy-selection(CUT_BUFFER0,CLIPBOARD) \n\

Can twm play with selections?  It would be a better place for this action.

Without using a different window manager, or another program like xcutsel,
is there any way of doing what I want?

On a more general note, I would like better use made of the selection
mechanisms in R5 - e.g. Copy the time from the clock.

Thanks for listening,

Duncan.



-- 
Duncan Sinclair                     |  Try one    sinclair@cs.glasgow.ac.uk
Computing Science Research Student  |  of these:  sinclair@uk.ac.glasgow.cs
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