bug#21196: 24.5; Paste from clipboard to emacs -nw on windows 8.1

bug#21196: 24.5; Paste from clipboard to emacs -nw on windows 8.1

[Pablo Mercader Alcántara]

Some days ago I installed version 24.5, in the previous version that I
used (24.3) everything was fine.

I start my emacs session with the "-nw" command line option. And
proceeded to work. Everything works fine, except that now after the
update the text that I kill on emacs doesn't go into windows
clipboard. I can paste on emacs text coming from other programs through
the clipboard, but the inverse is not possible.

When I start emacs normally (without "-nw") everything works fine, so at
first I thought that this was some kind of new configuration. Later I
decided to make some research and found where the problem was. Looking
at the value of the variable "interprogram-cut-function" in my system I
see that it's set to "x-select-text" and in my system this function is
defined at "common-win.el". In the body of "x-select-text" the first
"cond" function is like this "(cond ((eq (framep (selected-frame)) 'w32)
..." and I think this is the cause for the kill function to be unable to
send the text to the clipboard when running with the "-nw" option,
because when emacs runs in this mode the call "(framep
(selected-frame))" returns "t" when it is waiting for a "w32"
value. When the same call is run on the emacs running whithout the "-nw"
option the expected "w32" value appears.

I was also curious about why the yank function does work so, I went to
see the source of the "x-get-selection-value" function too. It turns out
that it's even defined on a different source file named
"w32-common-fns.el". Seeing that I think that only the windows version
defines this function this way, and I can't see anything like the
"framep" function arround here so there is the problem.

Thanks for the great emacs editor! I really admire this project!

In GNU Emacs 24.5.1 (i686-pc-mingw32)
 of 2015-04-11 on LEG570
Windowing system distributor `Microsoft Corp.', version 6.3.9600
Configured using:
 `configure --prefix=/c/usr --host=i686-pc-mingw32'

Important settings:
  value of $LANG: ESD
  locale-coding-system: cp1252

Major mode: Help

Minor modes in effect:
  yas-global-mode: t
  yas-minor-mode: t
  tooltip-mode: t
  electric-indent-mode: t
  mouse-wheel-mode: t
  tool-bar-mode: t
  menu-bar-mode: t
  file-name-shadow-mode: t
  global-font-lock-mode: t
  font-lock-mode: t
  auto-composition-mode: t
  auto-encryption-mode: t
  auto-compression-mode: t
  buffer-read-only: t
  line-number-mode: t
  transient-mark-mode: t

Recent messages:
End of buffer [2 times]
x-get-selection-value
Quit
x-get-selection-value
Type "q" to restore previous buffer.
You can run the command `describe-function' with C-h f
Type "q" to restore previous buffer.
C-x C-g is undefined
Quit
Making completion list...

Load-path shadows:
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bug#21196: 24.5; Paste from clipboard to emacs -nw on windows 8.1

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2015 20:06:19 -0400
> From: Pablo Mercader Alcántara <programingfrik@gmail.com>
> 
> Some days ago I installed version 24.5, in the previous version that I
> used (24.3) everything was fine.
> 
> I start my emacs session with the "-nw" command line option. And
> proceeded to work. Everything works fine, except that now after the
> update the text that I kill on emacs doesn't go into windows
> clipboard. I can paste on emacs text coming from other programs through
> the clipboard, but the inverse is not possible.

This is expected behavior: Emacs doesn't support clipboard operations
in -nw sessions, neither on MS-Windows nor on other platforms.  To be
sure, I just tested in v24.3 on MS-Windows, and I see there exactly
the same results as you report for 24.5.  So I cannot understand why
you say it was OK in v24.3.

> When I start emacs normally (without "-nw") everything works fine, so at
> first I thought that this was some kind of new configuration. Later I
> decided to make some research and found where the problem was. Looking
> at the value of the variable "interprogram-cut-function" in my system I
> see that it's set to "x-select-text" and in my system this function is
> defined at "common-win.el". In the body of "x-select-text" the first
> "cond" function is like this "(cond ((eq (framep (selected-frame)) 'w32)
> ..." and I think this is the cause for the kill function to be unable to
> send the text to the clipboard when running with the "-nw" option,
> because when emacs runs in this mode the call "(framep
> (selected-frame))" returns "t" when it is waiting for a "w32"
> value. When the same call is run on the emacs running whithout the "-nw"
> option the expected "w32" value appears.

That's correct.  And the same is true for Emacs 24.3.  Maybe you mean
Emacs 23, where indeed the test for the GUI frame was absent.  But
that was an omission, which is now fixed.

If you want to have access to the clipboard in -nw sessions, you can
always override x-select-text with your own version that doesn't
include that test.  Although I'm unsure why would you want to use
text-mode sessions too much on MS-Windows; GUI sessions have, of
course, full access to the clipboard.

bug#21196: Fwd: bug#21196: 24.5; Paste from clipboard to emacs -nw on windows 8.1

[Pablo Mercader Alcántara]

2015-08-06 10:31 GMT-04:00 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>:
>> Date: Wed, 5 Aug 2015 20:06:19 -0400
>> From: Pablo Mercader Alcántara <programingfrik@gmail.com>
>>
>> Some days ago I installed version 24.5, in the previous version that I
>> used (24.3) everything was fine.
>>
>> I start my emacs session with the "-nw" command line option. And
>> proceeded to work. Everything works fine, except that now after the
>> update the text that I kill on emacs doesn't go into windows
>> clipboard. I can paste on emacs text coming from other programs through
>> the clipboard, but the inverse is not possible.
>
> This is expected behavior: Emacs doesn't support clipboard operations
> in -nw sessions, neither on MS-Windows nor on other platforms.  To be
> sure, I just tested in v24.3 on MS-Windows, and I see there exactly
> the same results as you report for 24.5.  So I cannot understand why
> you say it was OK in v24.3.

Ok, I made the test on emacs 24.3 too, you are right it's the same. It looks
like I thought that this version was the one I had installed because
is the latest
previous version in the my "installs/emacs" directory. sorry! :P

>
>> When I start emacs normally (without "-nw") everything works fine, so at
>> first I thought that this was some kind of new configuration. Later I
>> decided to make some research and found where the problem was. Looking
>> at the value of the variable "interprogram-cut-function" in my system I
>> see that it's set to "x-select-text" and in my system this function is
>> defined at "common-win.el". In the body of "x-select-text" the first
>> "cond" function is like this "(cond ((eq (framep (selected-frame)) 'w32)
>> ..." and I think this is the cause for the kill function to be unable to
>> send the text to the clipboard when running with the "-nw" option,
>> because when emacs runs in this mode the call "(framep
>> (selected-frame))" returns "t" when it is waiting for a "w32"
>> value. When the same call is run on the emacs running whithout the "-nw"
>> option the expected "w32" value appears.
>
> That's correct.  And the same is true for Emacs 24.3.  Maybe you mean
> Emacs 23, where indeed the test for the GUI frame was absent.  But
> that was an omission, which is now fixed.

And why do we want to remove that thing that I say is a "feature" but it looks
like it was treated like a "bug".

>
> If you want to have access to the clipboard in -nw sessions, you can
> always override x-select-text with your own version that doesn't
> include that test.  Although I'm unsure why would you want to use
> text-mode sessions too much on MS-Windows; GUI sessions have, of
> course, full access to the clipboard.

Well, I use cygwin and my prefered editor is emacs, If I'm in cygwin's bash
I like to use emacs "command line style" and I besides I use the beutiful
"http://sourceforge.net/projects/console/" all the time to get a nice
background, that also looks nice on emacs. :P

I think that this feature/bug thing is working backwards. Isn't it desireble
to use X's clipboard on an xterm emacs session? so insted of taking the
functionality from the windows version, why don't we implement it on the
*nix version :D.

Anyway! thanks for the answers!

bug#21196: 24.5; Paste from clipboard to emacs -nw on windows 8.1

[Eli Zaretskii]

> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 19:03:01 -0400
> From: Pablo Mercader Alcántara <programingfrik@gmail.com>
> 
> > Maybe you mean Emacs 23, where indeed the test for the GUI frame
> > was absent.  But that was an omission, which is now fixed.
> 
> And why do we want to remove that thing that I say is a "feature" but it looks
> like it was treated like a "bug".

For consistency across platforms, I guess.

> I think that this feature/bug thing is working backwards. Isn't it desireble
> to use X's clipboard on an xterm emacs session? so insted of taking the
> functionality from the windows version, why don't we implement it on the
> *nix version :D.

It's not always possible to do on Unix what Emacs 23 and before did on
Windows.  On Unix you can build Emacs without any X support
whatsoever, something that is not supported on Windows.  In that case,
X functions are not available.

bug#21196: 24.5; Paste from clipboard to emacs -nw on windows 8.1

[Pablo Mercader Alcántara]

Ok! I understand, the good part is that it can be customized.

Thank you any way!

2015-08-07 2:34 GMT-04:00 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>:
>> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 19:03:01 -0400
>> From: Pablo Mercader Alcántara <programingfrik@gmail.com>
>>
>> > Maybe you mean Emacs 23, where indeed the test for the GUI frame
>> > was absent.  But that was an omission, which is now fixed.
>>
>> And why do we want to remove that thing that I say is a "feature" but it looks
>> like it was treated like a "bug".
>
> For consistency across platforms, I guess.
>
>> I think that this feature/bug thing is working backwards. Isn't it desireble
>> to use X's clipboard on an xterm emacs session? so insted of taking the
>> functionality from the windows version, why don't we implement it on the
>> *nix version :D.
>
> It's not always possible to do on Unix what Emacs 23 and before did on
> Windows.  On Unix you can build Emacs without any X support
> whatsoever, something that is not supported on Windows.  In that case,
> X functions are not available.

bug#21196: 24.5; Paste from clipboard to emacs -nw on windows 8.1

[Pablo Mercader Alcántara]

This is closed and I understood perfectly, but still, if the purpose
is "consistency" why allow "paste from windows clipboard" but not
"copy to windows clipboard". Obviously this is not what I want, that
the "paste from" is disabled too, but I'm curious. Is there a reason?
:P

Thanks for your time!

2015-08-07 9:01 GMT-04:00 Pablo Mercader Alcántara <programingfrik@gmail.com>:
> Ok! I understand, the good part is that it can be customized.
>
> Thank you any way!
>
> 2015-08-07 2:34 GMT-04:00 Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org>:
>>> Date: Thu, 6 Aug 2015 19:03:01 -0400
>>> From: Pablo Mercader Alcántara <programingfrik@gmail.com>
>>>
>>> > Maybe you mean Emacs 23, where indeed the test for the GUI frame
>>> > was absent.  But that was an omission, which is now fixed.
>>>
>>> And why do we want to remove that thing that I say is a "feature" but it looks
>>> like it was treated like a "bug".
>>
>> For consistency across platforms, I guess.
>>
>>> I think that this feature/bug thing is working backwards. Isn't it desireble
>>> to use X's clipboard on an xterm emacs session? so insted of taking the
>>> functionality from the windows version, why don't we implement it on the
>>> *nix version :D.
>>
>> It's not always possible to do on Unix what Emacs 23 and before did on
>> Windows.  On Unix you can build Emacs without any X support
>> whatsoever, something that is not supported on Windows.  In that case,
>> X functions are not available.