[Simon]

Does anybody know of any hack to get Linux style copy/paste behavior* on the Mac? Not just within the X11 environment, but throughout all of OS X. I've been looking for some kind of hack that does that, but couldn't find anything. All I've come up with are the shell command pbcopy and pbpaste. Any ideas?

*) selection = copy, middle-click = paste

[TETENAL]

How would it know which selection to paste?

[Simon]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

How would it know which selection to paste?

The last one maybe?

[sushiism]

sorry?
whats different about them?

someone might have tips to recreate it if you describe it

[El Gato]

Originally Posted by Simon 

The last one maybe?

So you select some text to copy.

Then you select some more text that you want to paste over.

How does it know to copy the text that was selected first and not the second selection (which is what you were trying to paste over)?

[Simon]

Originally Posted by El Gato 

How does it know to copy the text that was selected first and not the second selection (which is what you were trying to paste over)?

It doesn't. You can not copy one thing and paste over another selection that way.

But that's entirely not the point. I'm not here to argue if it's better or worse than OS X's copy/paste. All I'm asking for is if anybody knows of an app/hack/whatever that enables that copy/paste behavior on a Mac.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by sushiism 

sorry?
whats different about them?
someone might have tips to recreate it if you describe it

If you read my very first you will see that I describe how Linux style copy/paste works. It's explained at the bottom of the post.

[wataru]

Originally Posted by El Gato 

So you select some text to copy.

Then you select some more text that you want to paste over.

How does it know to copy the text that was selected first and not the second selection (which is what you were trying to paste over)?

Uh, you know you can paste without having selected something to paste over, right?

[P]

The Mac OS equivalent is to drag and drop text. Combine this with Exposé and Command-Tab to drag to windows that you can't see. It has the advantage of letting you cut as well - in fact, that is the default unless it's a write-protected page, and you have to hold option to copy - and even delete, by dragging to the trash. I know that it's hard to relearn (because you don't remember that you should have dragged until you're in the window you want to paste to) but it isn't any slower and it's more flexible. I'm not aware of any hacks that will implement the X11-style on OS X.

(ObNitpick: That behaviour is much older than Linux, and works on many other operating systems besides. It's more correct to call it X11 cut-n-paste, because that's where it comes from.)

[besson3c]

It would be nice to have this feature, I'd setup my middle click on my Mighty Mouse to do this.

[cybergoober]

Originally Posted by wataru 

Uh, you know you can paste without having selected something to paste over, right?

I'm sure he was just providing an example in which the proposed copy/paste mechanism wouldn't be ideal.

[chabig]

Originally Posted by Simon 

If you read my very first you will see that I describe how Linux style copy/paste works. It's explained at the bottom of the post.

Sorry. Still not clear. What does "selection=copy" mean?

[Simon]

Originally Posted by P 

(ObNitpick: That behaviour is much older than Linux, and works on many other operating systems besides. It's more correct to call it X11 cut-n-paste, because that's where it comes from.)

True, good point.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by chabig 

Sorry. Still not clear. What does "selection=copy" mean?

I guess I was being to brief.

In X11 whenever you select some characters they are automatically copied to your clipboard. So to 'copy' you just select. A middle click then 'pastes' that selection. You don't need to use the keyboard or menus, it's all done with the mouse. There are many situations where I prefer OS X's cmd-c and cmd-v, but there are occasions where X11 style copy/paste is much faster. It would be nice if there were a hack that would allow you to use X11 style behavior for those occasions.

[chabig]

Simon,

Thanks for that clarification. I have never experienced that behavior. Automatic copy...interesting. But doesn't that mean that once you've got a desired selection on the clipboard that you can't select anything else in the interim? Isn't that somewhat limiting?

[P]

The idea behind the middleclick paste is to not have regular copy/paste at all. The way OS X and most X11-based interfaces do cut and paste is to run a pasteboard server application - on OS X, it's called "pbs", you can find it with Activity Monitor. When you hit Cut or Copy, something is sent to the pasteboard. When you hit Paste, whatever is on the pasteboard is fetched. The downside to this is that running this pasteboard server is somewhat expensive, memory and CPU-wise. The middleclick thing avoids this - nothing is ever copied until you hit middleclick, then you copy directly to the receiving app. Technically, it's quite ingenious.

(Classic Mac OS did Copy/Paste in a different way. Without Multifinder, copied information was kept in the application memory space until an application was quit and then kept around in the system heap until a new app was launched. The new app then inherited this old pasteboard. With Multifinder, this little magic had to happen every time you switched applications, except it was copied directly to the other app. A system with protected memory can't work this way.)

[chabig]

Nobody has yet pointed out Apple's comments:

http://developer.apple.com/technotes...n2165.html#Q18

Chris

[Simon]

Originally Posted by chabig 

But doesn't that mean that once you've got a desired selection on the clipboard that you can't select anything else in the interim? Isn't that somewhat limiting?

Actually it's quite the opposite. As soon as you select something else what you lose what you had in the 'clipboard'. You always paste the last things that was selected. That may sound confusing, but when I'm editing code and need to shuffle stuff around nothing is faster than select and middle-click.

In the meantime I've stopped using the OS X shells (Apple's Terminal.app as well as others). I'm using the ultra-primitive xterm through X11 instead just so I get this copy/paste behavior.

[TETENAL]

Originally Posted by P 

When you hit Cut or Copy, something is sent to the pasteboard. When you hit Paste, whatever is on the pasteboard is fetched. The downside to this is that running this pasteboard server is somewhat expensive, memory and CPU-wise. The middleclick thing avoids this - nothing is ever copied until you hit middleclick, then you copy directly to the receiving app.

Mac applications can "promise" data to the pasteboard and the actual copying is then delayed till something is actually pasted.

Technically, [middle-click pasting is] quite ingenious.

I don't know. If lazy copying is really the reason for this then promises look cleverer to me and without the usability issues.

[chabig]

Originally Posted by Simon 

As soon as you select something else you lose what you had in the 'clipboard'.

That was the point of my question. I think anything that can result in data loss should require user action. I would not try to deny you your choice of operating methods, it seems entirely appropriate that this is not the way most computers work.

[besson3c]

Originally Posted by Simon 

Actually it's quite the opposite. As soon as you select something else what you lose what you had in the 'clipboard'. You always paste the last things that was selected. That may sound confusing, but when I'm editing code and need to shuffle stuff around nothing is faster than select and middle-click.

In the meantime I've stopped using the OS X shells (Apple's Terminal.app as well as others). I'm using the ultra-primitive xterm through X11 instead just so I get this copy/paste behavior.

Simon, the new version of iTerm will allow you to middle click to paste. I use it for all of my Terminal work (which is a lot), it's FAR better than Terminal, even without this feature.

Now that I know this feature exists though, I might try it (it would require disabling the existing middle click function in the Mouse panel though)

[TETENAL]

Did you guys ever even try Apple's Terminal application? Because I just did, and it does support this middle-click pasting.

[Simon]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Did you guys every even tried Apple's Terminal application? Because I just did, and it does support this middle-click pasting.

Mine doesn't.

[P]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

Mac applications can "promise" data to the pasteboard and the actual copying is then delayed till something is actually pasted.

Just marking the page copy on write or something fancy with the Notification Center?

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

I don't know. If lazy copying is really the reason for this then promises look cleverer to me and without the usability issues.

Middle-click pasting is quicker than Cut-n-Paste. The only thing the Mac has that is as fast is drag-n-drop, and that wasn't developed until much later. And a Notification Center hack? Sure, that's pretty, if you have a Notification Center up and running. Slightly overkill for a pasteboard though, and it still uses more RAM than the other option.

[TETENAL]

There is no hack involved. See the documentation for Carbon and Cocoa respectively:

Pasteboard Manager Programming Guide: Handling Pasteboard Promises
Pasteboard Programming Topics for Cocoa: Implementing Copy and Paste

Originally Posted by Simon 

Mine doesn't.

It does for me. I have a regular 3 button mouse. Maybe you have a Mighty-Mouse and the fancy button assignments make it not work? Did you try to set the nipple to tertiary click?

[Simon]

Originally Posted by TETENAL 

It does for me. I have a regular 3 button mouse. Maybe you have a Mighty-Mouse and the fancy button assignments make it not work? Did you try to set the nipple to tertiary click?

Bingo. I owe you a beer. Thanks man!