Re: How to speed up cutting & pasting from/to emacs?

[Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@skimble.plus.com>]

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Emanuel Berg <embe8573@student.uu.se> writes:

> Sharon Kimble <boudiccas@skimble.plus.com> writes:
>
>> I'm involved in a project which involves a lot of
>> pasting into emacs From the clipboard, which is
>> taking a long time.
>
> The best answer/method is: don't do it!
>
> What other program(s) are you using, to/from which you
> copy/paste? Have you examined if Emacs can do what
> these programs do, in what case you don't have that
> problem anymore but can rely on kill/yank instead,
> which is much more powerful and fast.

Primarily 'zim' and pasting to and from 'JabRef', I'm mostly creating
bibtex records from a published bibliography on an article on the web,
which I've opened in w3m. I would use 'eew' if I could only find out how
to use tabs with it! 

>
> Examples, instead of - use: Thunderbird -> Gnus (what
> I remember you already use that), Irssi -> ERC, man
> pages with man/less in the shell -> M-x man RET,
> Iceweasel/Firefox -> Emacs-w3m. And so on.
>
>> How can I speed up the cutting and pasting please?
>
> What do you mean "speed up", exactly? Do you use the
> GUI Emacs in X? And in another window, you have
> another program with text? Again, the best thing is if
> what that program does can be done in Emacs, which is
> very likely, and Emacs probably does it better as
> well. If this can't be done for whatever reason, you
> need a window manager in X with a shortcut to iterate
> windows. I use Openbox with which it is possible to
> select window with M-TAB (in Emacs' notation). So in
> the other program you cut the text. Then hit M-TAB to
> go to Emacs. Then hit whatever key you have assigned
> to paste it, if it isn't integrated with the kill
> ring already, in what case C-y is fine (it doesn't
> matter in terms of speed if the "paste from clipboard"
> shortcut is as short and close as C-y).

By "speed-up" I mean that I have to wait for emacs to catch up with
where I've pasted something. Yes, emacs as a GUI along with using the
mouse.

Knowing that "Openbox" is similar to "fluxbox", exactly *what is*
your command in your "keys" page to access emacs again please? I know
how to *start* a program, but not how to *access* a currently running
program.

>
> If this is the situation you already have, elaborate
> further what you mean by making it faster.
>
> In general,
>
> 1) Use Emacs for everything.

Almost there. 
>
> 2) Don't use the mouse.

I've seen and read about how bad using the mouse is in terms of
potential RSI, but I still find it useful. 
>
> 3) Use shortcuts that are short and close.

Yes, getting there. 
>
> 4) Integrate Emacs with external programs by setting
>    up (keyboard) shortcuts to go to and from them.
>    For example, if the M-TAB window iteration method
>    isn't fast enough (if you have tons of windows),
>    setup a shortcut in X (with xbindkeys) to go
>    directly to the Emacs window, and then setup
>    another shortcut to go directly to the program from
>    which you copy text. This isn't difficult to do:
>    use 'wmctrl'.

I can easily utilise the "keys" program in fluxbox, which I had
forgotten about. 
>
> Keep on asking until you get it if you get stuck.
> Things like this are very important and they are what
> makes the difference between fun and productive and
> miserable and somewhat less productive, and you don't
> want to make that trade.

Will do. :)

Thanks
Sharon.
-- 
A taste of linux = http://www.sharons.org.uk
TGmeds = http://www.tgmeds.org.uk
Debian 8.0, fluxbox 1.3.7, emacs 24.5.50.2

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