[UFO Chicago] Whining about XWindows

[Jay F Shachter]

Centuries ago, Nostradamus predicted that Brian Sobolak would write on Sun Dec  2 23:08:40 2007:

> 
> There are many things I hate about X.
> 
> Top of my list: the whole copy and paste thing.
> 
> It annoys me to no end that in order to paste between applications I have
> to use the mouse.  Yuck.
> 

There is nothing whatsoever about X that requires that the mouse be
used for copy and paste.  An application may tell the X server at any
point that it owns a selection.  It need not be in response to mouse
input.  In may be in response to keyboard input, or to the phase of
the moon, or to the arrival of neutrinos in the neutrino-reading
device.  At some later time another application may tell the server
that it requests that selection.  This, also, may be at any time of
the second application's choosing, in response to any event
whatsoever.  The first application is then requested to provide the
server with the contents of its selection, which the server will then
send to the second application.  If you are using applications that
perform these acts only in response to mouse input, then the fault
lies with the applications that you are using, not with X.  Moreover,
it is quite possible that you can customize your applications (using
an X resource file and the Xt translation table, if your applications
were written using Xt) so as to perform these acts in response to
events of your own choosing.


			Jay F. Shachter
			6424 N Whipple St
			Chicago IL  60645-4111
				(1-773)7613784
				jay at m5.chicago.il.us
				http://m5.chicago.il.us