Re: why is cut and paste broken on X11?

On Monday, August 6, 2018 at 1:08:10 PM UTC-4, Tony Mechelynck wrote:
> Well, I can't speak for you, but I've been using gvim (with GTK2 GUI)
> for years on X11 and for me copy, cut and paste work with no problems.
> The workings of the X11 clipboard may have to need some getting used
> to for someone raised and bred on Windows, though, because it doesn't
> work exactly the same way as the Windows clipboard.
>
> - Of course, your Vim has to be compiled with +clipboard but if it's a
> GUI it usually is.
> - There are actually more than one separate "clipboards" on X11. One
> of them is called "selection" in the X11 documentation: it is set by
> most programs (but usually not Vim) as soon as you select something
> visually and its contents can be pasted by a middle-click. To Vim,
> this is the * (star) register, set by "*d "*y or :d* :y* and pasted by
> "*p "*P or :put * This is usually not the one I use, except when I
> need to paste into xterm, which doesn't know the other one.
> - The other one is called "clipboard" in the X11 documentation and it
> is used in all programs I know (including gvim) by Edit→Copy, Edit→Cut
> and Edit→Paste. In addition, Vim knows it as the + register and uses
> it with "+y "+d "+p "+P :y+ :d+ and :put +
> - These two registers work best in gvim because when running Vim
> (compiled, of course, with +x11 +clipboard) in an X11-aware terminal,
> the terminal may (depending on which terminal application you are
> using) steal selections and middle clicks and not let Vim see them. In
> addition, usually neither of them works in tty1..tty6 (usually
> accessed by Ctrl-Alt-F1..Ctrl-Alt-F6 and left by Ctrl-Alt-F7) because
> these "Linux consoles" have no connection to the X11 server.
> - When copying, cutting and pasting (sorry, in Vim language it is
> yanking, deleting and putting, respectively) within a single instance
> of Vim it is possible (and I recommend) to bypass the X11 selection &
> clipboard completely, and use either the default register for
> temporary use, or the 26 lettered registers "a to "z for stuff you may
> want to remember, and put again and again at different places in
> different edit files. I also find it handy to reserve register q for
> macros, started (in that case) by qq then doing something in Normal
> mode, and an additional q stops the registering.
> - I usually set the 'clipboard' option to just "exclude:cons\|linux"
> i.e. either :set cb-=autoselect or :set cb=exclude:cons\\\|linux (see
> :h option-backslash about the backslash-escapes) so Vim will leave the
> X11 selection well enough alone unless I explicitly say I want to use
> it. For the same reason I keep the a and P flags out of 'guioptions'
> (in my case I use :set go=!cgimrLtTp but YMMV).
>
> Best regards,
> Tony.

Thank you, this explains a lot. It is the selection that is failing to work and the clipboard I can only wish to get rid of it altogether.

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