bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard

bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard

[Craig Falls]

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Symptom: User loses the contents of the X-windows clipboard when
executing a kill command.  This is inconsistent with text killed in
emacs, which is still saved in the kill-ring after subsequent kills.
(see http://osdir.com/ml/emacs.macintosh.osx/2005-11/msg00078.html for
someone else annoyed by this)

Actions to trigger: Copy text in Firefox.  Run a kill command
(e.g. kill-region) in emacs.  Run yank.  Run yank-pop.  Note that the
text copied in Firefox is nowhere to be found.

Fix: The following one-line patch seems to work, but I'm no emacs
hacker, so among other things, there's no configuration.  It just
saves the clipboard to the kill-ring before killing if yank would
result in yanking the clipboard instead of the top of the kill ring.

--- /home/cfalls/src/emacs/lisp/simple.el       2008-04-22
15:50:11.000000000 -0400
+++ /tmp/simple.el      2009-02-11 11:23:46.373880990 -0500
@@ -2705,46 +2705,47 @@
 (defun kill-new (string &optional replace yank-handler)
   "Make STRING the latest kill in the kill ring.
 Set `kill-ring-yank-pointer' to point to it.
 If `interprogram-cut-function' is non-nil, apply it to STRING.
 Optional second argument REPLACE non-nil means that STRING will replace
 the front of the kill ring, rather than being added to the list.

 Optional third arguments YANK-HANDLER controls how the STRING is later
 inserted into a buffer; see `insert-for-yank' for details.
 When a yank handler is specified, STRING must be non-empty (the yank
 handler, if non-nil, is stored as a `yank-handler' text property on
STRING).

 When the yank handler has a non-nil PARAM element, the original STRING
 argument is not used by `insert-for-yank'.  However, since Lisp code
 may access and use elements from the kill ring directly, the STRING
 argument should still be a \"useful\" string for such uses."
   (if (> (length string) 0)
       (if yank-handler
          (put-text-property 0 (length string)
                             'yank-handler yank-handler string))
     (if yank-handler
        (signal 'args-out-of-range
                (list string "yank-handler specified for empty string"))))
+  (current-kill 0)
   (if (fboundp 'menu-bar-update-yank-menu)
       (menu-bar-update-yank-menu string (and replace (car kill-ring))))
   (if (and replace kill-ring)
       (setcar kill-ring string)
     (push string kill-ring)
     (if (> (length kill-ring) kill-ring-max)
        (setcdr (nthcdr (1- kill-ring-max) kill-ring) nil)))
   (setq kill-ring-yank-pointer kill-ring)
   (if interprogram-cut-function
       (funcall interprogram-cut-function string (not replace))))

 (defun kill-append (string before-p &optional yank-handler)
   "Append STRING to the end of the latest kill in the kill ring.
 If BEFORE-P is non-nil, prepend STRING to the kill.
 Optional third argument YANK-HANDLER, if non-nil, specifies the
 yank-handler text property to be set on the combined kill ring
 string.  If the specified yank-handler arg differs from the
 yank-handler property of the latest kill string, this function
 adds the combined string to the kill ring as a new element,
 instead of replacing the last kill with it.
 If `interprogram-cut-function' is set, pass the resulting kill to it."
   (let* ((cur (car kill-ring)))
     (kill-new (if before-p (concat string cur) (concat cur string))



In GNU Emacs 23.0.60.1 (x86_64-unknown-linux-gnu, GTK+ Version 2.8.20)
 of 2008-04-24 on nyc-qws-024
Windowing system distributor `The X.Org Foundation', version 11.0.70101000
configured using `configure  '--enable-font-backend' '--with-xft'
'--with-freetype''

Important settings:
  value of $LC_ALL: nil
  value of $LC_COLLATE: nil
  value of $LC_CTYPE: nil
  value of $LC_MESSAGES: nil
  value of $LC_MONETARY: nil
  value of $LC_NUMERIC: nil
  value of $LC_TIME: nil
  value of $LANG: en_US.UTF-8
  value of $XMODIFIERS: nil
  locale-coding-system: utf-8-unix
  default-enable-multibyte-characters: t

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bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard

[Stefan Monnier]

severity 2289 wishlist
thanks

> Fix: The following one-line patch seems to work, but I'm no emacs
> hacker, so among other things, there's no configuration.  It just
> saves the clipboard to the kill-ring before killing if yank would
> result in yanking the clipboard instead of the top of the kill ring.

I use a similar patch myself.
And actually I tried to get it accepted, but it was turned down because
of the problems it introduces when the "current-kill" hangs (e.g. when
the holder of the selection is suspended).
We should add it together, conditional on some config var.
That will be for Emacs-23.2, tho.


        Stefan

Processed: Re: bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard

[Emacs bug Tracking System]

Processing commands for control@emacsbugs.donarmstrong.com:

> severity 2289 wishlist
bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard
Severity set to `wishlist' from `normal'

> thanks
Stopping processing here.

Please contact me if you need assistance.

Don Armstrong
(administrator, Emacs bugs database)

bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard

[Craig Falls]

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Thanks.  I sort of feel like current-kill should time out, whether this new
option is set or not, if that's possible in emacs lisp.

On Wed, Feb 11, 2009 at 9:33 PM, Stefan Monnier <monnier@iro.umontreal.ca>wrote:

> severity 2289 wishlist
> thanks
>
> > Fix: The following one-line patch seems to work, but I'm no emacs
> > hacker, so among other things, there's no configuration.  It just
> > saves the clipboard to the kill-ring before killing if yank would
> > result in yanking the clipboard instead of the top of the kill ring.
>
> I use a similar patch myself.
> And actually I tried to get it accepted, but it was turned down because
> of the problems it introduces when the "current-kill" hangs (e.g. when
> the holder of the selection is suspended).
> We should add it together, conditional on some config var.
> That will be for Emacs-23.2, tho.
>
>
>        Stefan
>

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bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard

[Glenn Morris]

found 2289 24.0.90
stop

This issue still seems to be present, despite the selection-related
changes in Emacs 24.

bug#2289: wishlist with fix: losing X-windows clipboard

[Chong Yidong]

Glenn Morris <rgm@gnu.org> writes:

>> Copy text in Firefox.  Run a kill command (e.g. kill-region) in
>> emacs.  Run yank.  Run yank-pop.  Note that the text copied in
>> Firefox is nowhere to be found.
>
> This issue still seems to be present, despite the selection-related
> changes in Emacs 24.

Actually, it was fixed in 23.2.  The behavior desired by the OP can now
be obtained by setting save-interprogram-paste-before-kill to t.
Closing.