Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Andy Koppe]

On 29 July 2010 08:24, JOHNER Jean 066030 wrote:
> Thank you for all the answers to my original request below. This was very instructive.
> In conclusion:
> - to get middle-mouse paste of the selection with Mintty, Options/Mouse/copy on select had to be checked, which is not the default.

Middle button paste really does work fine by default. It pastes
whatever is in the clipboard. However, when you select something, it
is not automatically placed in the clipboard unless you enable 'Copy
on select'.

This is a difference in approach between Windows and X11: in X, the
selection is automatically made available for pasting, whereas in
Windows you need to explicitly copy it to the clipboard using the Copy
menu command or one of its keyboard shortcuts. The Windows approach
has the advantage that you can select something without clobbering the
clipboard content. It has the disadvantage that an additional action
is required when you just want to copy&paste.

Mintty currently defaults to the Windows approach. I've seen enough
questions about this though that I'm thinking about changing this.

Selecting without copying isn't actually much use in mintty, because
the only other thing you can do with a selection is to try to 'Open'
it. And I guess most users do come from a Unixy background.

Opinions?

Andy

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R: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Marco Atzeri]

--- Gio 29/7/10, Andy Koppe  ha scritto:

> > Thank you for all the answers to my original request
> below. This was very instructive.
> > In conclusion:
> > - to get middle-mouse paste of the selection with
> Mintty, Options/Mouse/copy on select had to be checked,
> which is not the default.
> 
> Middle button paste really does work fine by default. It
> pastes
> whatever is in the clipboard. However, when you select
> something, it
> is not automatically placed in the clipboard unless you
> enable 'Copy
> on select'.
> 
> This is a difference in approach between Windows and X11:
> in X, the
> selection is automatically made available for pasting,
> whereas in
> Windows you need to explicitly copy it to the clipboard
> using the Copy
> menu command or one of its keyboard shortcuts. The Windows
> approach
> has the advantage that you can select something without
> clobbering the
> clipboard content. It has the disadvantage that an
> additional action
> is required when you just want to copy&paste.
> 
> Mintty currently defaults to the Windows approach. I've
> seen enough
> questions about this though that I'm thinking about
> changing this.
> 
> Selecting without copying isn't actually much use in
> mintty, because
> the only other thing you can do with a selection is to try
> to 'Open'
> it. And I guess most users do come from a Unixy
> background.
> 
> Opinions?
> 
> Andy
> 

I prefer the X approach as default. 
I often have both several mintty and Xterm sessions 
open at the same time, and I prefer the same way of working.


Marco






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Re: R: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Markus Hoenicka]

Marco Atzeri <marco_atzeri@yahoo.it> wrote:

>
> I prefer the X approach as default.

I second that. I must have switched on this option right after  
installing mintty as I've already forgotten that the X approach is  
*not* the default.

regards,
Markus

-- 
Markus Hoenicka
http://www.mhoenicka.de
AQ score 38



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Re: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Jeremy Bopp]

On 7/29/2010 7:02 AM, Andy Koppe wrote:
> On 29 July 2010 08:24, JOHNER Jean 066030 wrote:
>> Thank you for all the answers to my original request below. This was very instructive.
>> In conclusion:
>> - to get middle-mouse paste of the selection with Mintty, Options/Mouse/copy on select had to be checked, which is not the default.
> 
> Middle button paste really does work fine by default. It pastes
> whatever is in the clipboard. However, when you select something, it
> is not automatically placed in the clipboard unless you enable 'Copy
> on select'.
> 
> This is a difference in approach between Windows and X11: in X, the
> selection is automatically made available for pasting, whereas in
> Windows you need to explicitly copy it to the clipboard using the Copy
> menu command or one of its keyboard shortcuts. The Windows approach
> has the advantage that you can select something without clobbering the
> clipboard content. It has the disadvantage that an additional action
> is required when you just want to copy&paste.
> 
> Mintty currently defaults to the Windows approach. I've seen enough
> questions about this though that I'm thinking about changing this.
> 
> Selecting without copying isn't actually much use in mintty, because
> the only other thing you can do with a selection is to try to 'Open'
> it. And I guess most users do come from a Unixy background.
> 
> Opinions?

I prefer the X behavior personally.

-Jeremy

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Re: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Rolf Campbell]

On 2010-07-29 08:02, Andy Koppe wrote:
> On 29 July 2010 08:24, JOHNER Jean 066030 wrote:
>> Thank you for all the answers to my original request below. This was very instructive.
>> In conclusion:
>> - to get middle-mouse paste of the selection with Mintty, Options/Mouse/copy on select had to be checked, which is not the default.
>
> Middle button paste really does work fine by default. It pastes
> whatever is in the clipboard. However, when you select something, it
> is not automatically placed in the clipboard unless you enable 'Copy
> on select'.
>
> This is a difference in approach between Windows and X11: in X, the
> selection is automatically made available for pasting, whereas in
> Windows you need to explicitly copy it to the clipboard using the Copy
> menu command or one of its keyboard shortcuts. The Windows approach
> has the advantage that you can select something without clobbering the
> clipboard content. It has the disadvantage that an additional action
> is required when you just want to copy&paste.
>
> Mintty currently defaults to the Windows approach. I've seen enough
> questions about this though that I'm thinking about changing this.
>
> Selecting without copying isn't actually much use in mintty, because
> the only other thing you can do with a selection is to try to 'Open'
> it. And I guess most users do come from a Unixy background.
>
> Opinions?
>
> Andy
>

I've been a Windows user for most of my life, but I still prefer 
copy-on-select for a terminal.  I vote for it being the default.


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Re: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Andy Koppe]

On 29 July 2010 13:02, Andy Koppe wrote:
> This is a difference in approach between Windows and X11: in X, the
> selection is automatically made available for pasting, whereas in
> Windows you need to explicitly copy it to the clipboard using the Copy
> menu command or one of its keyboard shortcuts. The Windows approach
> has the advantage that you can select something without clobbering the
> clipboard content. It has the disadvantage that an additional action
> is required when you just want to copy&paste.
>
> Mintty currently defaults to the Windows approach. I've seen enough
> questions about this though that I'm thinking about changing this.
>
> Selecting without copying isn't actually much use in mintty, because
> the only other thing you can do with a selection is to try to 'Open'
> it. And I guess most users do come from a Unixy background.
>
> Opinions?

Thanks everyone for the replies. The ayes have it.

Andy

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Re: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[JOHNER Jean 066030]

"Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows".

All the Linux terminals (KDE konsole, Gnome terminal) use copy-on-select
by default.
So ...

Jean JOHNER

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RE: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Daniel Colascione]

Yes, but the convention on Windows machines is _not_ to copy by default. If
the user wants something more unixy, he can use urxvt.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: cygwin-owner@cygwin.com [mailto:cygwin-owner@cygwin.com] On
> Behalf Of JOHNER Jean 066030
> Sent: Thursday, July 29, 2010 1:11 PM
> To: cygwin@cygwin.com
> Subject: Re: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?
> 
> "Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows".
> 
> All the Linux terminals (KDE konsole, Gnome terminal) use copy-on-select
by
> default.
> So ...
> 
> Jean JOHNER
> 
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Re: Should mintty's copy-on-select option be on by default?

[Andrey Repin]

Greetings, JOHNER Jean 066030!

> "Cygwin is a Linux-like environment for Windows".

> All the Linux terminals (KDE konsole, Gnome terminal) use copy-on-select
> by default.
> So ...

It's right and useful for streaming terminal (regular command line shell, chat
logs), but it is a big headache for fullscreen applications, even more for
WYSIWYG ones.
If you want to select something in stream, you likely want to copy it, because
you, literally, can't do anything else with that selection.
For WYSIWYG application, it could be myriad of things, from which replacing
selection with a clipboard content is probably the most wanted one.


--
WBR,
 Andrey Repin (anrdaemon@freemail.ru) 31.07.2010, <8:51>

Sorry for my terrible english...


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