Clipboard Improvements Idea

[Sarah Strong]

Hey, James,

I believe the class of apps that break are ones that don't conform to the
freedesktop.org ClipboardManager specifications
http://www.freedesktop.org/wiki/ClipboardManager and modify them. You can
find details on the clipboard problem at the bug David Bensimmon lists at
https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+bug/11334

It lists some popular apps along with their status. In some case it links to
resolved bug reports with diffs that can be used for reference code in
tracking down and fixing the problem in other applications. The apps it
lists as non-conforming would be a great starting point, and you could find
other affected applications either by searching for complaints online or by
spending one terribly boring afternoon testing popular applications.

I definitely think it's a worthwhile problem to tackle, and I love the idea
with tinkering with a small bug on a whole bunch of different projects, each
with their own language and style dialect. It looks like a potentially easy
fix in most of them, though, so I'm not convinced it's a full summer's work.
I won't be able to try tackling one until after my classes end on April 1st,
but I'll post a trip report and ultra-rough time/difficulty estimation from
an undergraduate's POV here that weekend. We might also try asking someone
who resolved one of the bugs linked on the master copy/paste page for an
idea of how long it took, too.

-Sarah



> Message: 7
> Date: Fri, 26 Mar 2010 15:48:46 -0400
> From: James Westby <jw+debian at jameswestby.net<jw%2Bdebian at jameswestby.net>
> >
> Subject: Re: Clipboard Improvements Idea
> To: Sarah Strong <sarah.e.strong at gmail.com>,
>        ubuntu-soc at lists.ubuntu.com
> Message-ID: <874ok2n9sx.fsf at jameswestby.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
>
> On Wed, 24 Mar 2010 18:53:06 -0400, Sarah Strong <sarah.e.strong at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Hey, all,
> >
> > I'm a third year computer science student poking around on GSOC ideas. I
> > asked about the state of clipboard support in the xorg project, and got a
> > very useful overview of how X handles it: http://pastebin.com/1n4mRck8.
> It
> > sounds like it wouldn't be appropriate to make any change to X in fixing
> > clipboard management issues. The xorg devs seem to think it'd be
> appropriate
> > to eliminate the pointer to xorg in the description
> > https://wiki.ubuntu.com/GoogleSoC2010/Ideas, too.
>
> Hi Sarah,
>
> Nice job on investigating this.
>
> > Combining that with James' comment, it looks like the most obvious way to
> > tackle this task would be per-application. If that isn't a big enough
> job,
> > perhaps David Bensimon could combine it with another grab bag idea he's
> > mentoring such as the nautilus improvements one, or with other one
> hundred
> > paper cuts style usability issues
> > https://bugs.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts
> >
> > Does that sound like a reasonable modification to the idea?
>
> I think so. It depends on how many apps need fixing I guess. Is it
> individual apps that break, or classes such as running Qt apps under
> GNOME?
>
> It might be a difficult project to do if we have no idea which apps
> don't work :-)
>
> Thanks,
>
> James
>
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