Clipboard Improvements Idea

[Kevin McKinney]

While researching the clipboard issue, I noticed this in the documentation
here http://standards.freedesktop.org/clipboards-spec/clipboards-latest.txt:



“*A remaining somewhat odd thing about X selections is that exiting the*

*app you did a cut/copy from removes the cut/copied data from the*

*clipboard, since the selection protocol is asynchronous and requires*

*the source app to provide the data at paste time. The solution here*

*would be a standardized protocol for a "clipboard daemon" so that apps*

*could hand off their data to a daemon when they exit. Or*

*alternatively, you can run an application such as xclipboard which*

*constantly "harvests" clipboard selections.*”



It seems reasonable to create a daemon or some sort of program to store the
clipboard data in such a way so it is available after the original
application has exited.  However, by architecting this functionality in this
manner, existing applications may some degree of change (as previously noted
by other developers).  Further, when an application is closed, the
daemon/program would have to capture the clipboard data.  There are several
posts about this enhancement, and I would be willing to provide assistance
in conjunction with other developers.



Regards,

Kevin McKinney

On Sat, Mar 27, 2010 at 12:29 AM, Sarah Strong <sarah.e.strong at gmail.com>wrote:

>
> 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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