Re: Need help with emacs clipboard.

[Robert Thorpe <rt@robertthorpeconsulting.com>]

Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com> writes:
...
> I see exactly the opposite behavior.  Emacs by default uses the
> clipboard for cut-and-paste.  But on my system nothing else uses the
> clipboard as Firefox and Chromium both use the X primary selection.

I think you're misunderstanding how things have changed.  The idea of
introducing the clipboard into X was to make things more like Windows.
The old x-selection behaviour is still supported though.

This is how things work on my system (Xubuntu).  If I mark something
with the mouse in Firefox, Thunderbird or Libreoffice then it enters the
x-selection.  If I then press the middle mouse button in Emacs it's
pasted into the Emacs buffer.  That's the old x-selection behaviour in
action.

If I mark something *and then "copy" or "cut" it*, then it enters the
clipboard.  So, if I mark something and then press Ctrl-C in Libreoffice
it enters the clipboard.  Then I can press C-y in Emacs and it will yank.
So, when you do the Ctrl-C in the other app the x-selection and the
clipboard contain the same information.

If I mark something different then the x-selection changes but the
clipboard doesn't.  This is actually useful because it means you can
carry two independent bits of text from another app into Emacs without
having to visit the app twice.

Apparently Chromium's behaviour is buggy though, see:
https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=68886

BR,
Robert Thorpe