Cut, Copy, Paste: Clipboard Management December 12, 2006
Posted by Carthik in applications, gnome.trackback
For me, one of the most irritating gaps in the GNOME desktop is the absence of a clipboard manager. A clipboard manager is a tool that keeps track of all the text you have copied, or, if you prefer, highlighted with your mouse – so when its time to paste you can paste not only what you copied last, but also the n things that you copied before then. Also, in GNOME, if you copy some text from, say, a Firefox window, and then close the Firefox window, you will be surprised to find that there is no copied text when you try to paste what you had copied.
I use Klipper from KDE to manage my clipboard. Its always on my panel. Though I don’t mind using KDE tools, I’d love a GNOME (GTK) tool that does the same. Looks like my wish will soon be fulfilled!
Glipper is clipboard manager for GNOME that will ship in Feisty! It looks pretty much like Klipper, down to the icon and the name, and I hope it does its job well.
Maybe I’ve said this here before but did you know that there is another way to copy and paste in X? You can highlight some text, and then go to another window or application, click where you want to paste the highlighted text, and then middle-click. If your mouse has no middle button, then you can click both the left and right buttons together to create the middle-click. Thats it – your highlighted text is now pasted in the other application. This simple trick evaded me for a long long time, ’cause no one ever pointed it out to me.
Ubuntu Blog 
Thanks for the tip. I remember using a clipboard manager a long time ago but couldn’t think of the name but this works just fine. Also, it is available in Edgy.
I am sure you meant that (with the middle click) the text is NOW pasted in the other application.
Yes. It`s available in Edgy too.
And in Dapper. I use it all the time. Priceless. 🙂
You can get Glipper for Edgy by using Automatix.
I smiled the entire day I worked out highlight and middle click – ingenious.
jdong@jdong-laptop:~$ madison-lite glipper
glipper | 0.95.1-1 | unstable | source, i386
glipper | 0.95.1-1 | feisty/universe | source, i386
glipper | 0.95.1-1~edgy1 | edgy-backports/universe | source, i386
Glipper is in Edgy Backports now.
Thanks, I just installed it. I too have been annoyed with not having a clipboard as of late. There are some great programs out there, just hard finding that needle in the haystack we call the web.
Thanks
-Jeff O’Hara
http://blog.zemote.com
Redhat by day, Ubuntu by night
I use Xfce, and it has it’s own clipboard manager (Clipman). Anybody know how it compares to Klipper/Glipper and if it’s possible to use it in DEs other than Xfce?
I’m still waiting for Klipper to have keyboard bindings for selection from the stack…
Peter Gasston, no need to use Automatix in order to install Glipper in Edgy. sudo apt-get install glipper will do
> in GNOME, if you copy some text from, say, a Firefox window, and
> then close the Firefox window, you will be surprised to find that
> there is no copied text when you try to paste what you had copied.
That’ll be a firefox bug then. There’s GTK+ API to allow this. Try gedit, for instance, without your clipboard manager. Applications have to opt-in because it’s a huge performance problem to just automatically grab huge amounts of data from applications like the gimp or gnumeric, in every available format. And it uses a freedesktop standard that was created after a lot of discussion and work by lots of relevant people.
Enabling an extra clipboard manager by default will cause a bunch of bug reports from people who are annoyed at the sudden slowdowns. This has been the situation with klipper. I hope it isn’t going to be installed by default.
Presumably, Firefox doesn’t use the latest GTK+ API because it wants to depend only on older versions of GTK+. But now that they are apparently willing to work more closely with distros, the distros could enable use of newer GTK+ API.
(I received this message via email – posting by proxy):
Hi :o)
Glad to see this is appreciated, great thanks to Sven Rech, our project
conceiver for his great work.
I’m currently working on replacing autotools with Scons for glipper,
splitting it into two versions (GNOME specific and “light”), adding more
GNOME support etc. It’s not coming along quite as fast as I would have
liked, but I’m getting there. (the main problem is other work taking
from glipper hacking time, if anyone wants to help write documentation
for GNOME, checkout the GNOME Documentation Project on live.gnome.org 😉
I’m very happy to see that glipper will be in feisty, with enough eyes
all bugs are shallow ;o) With the new build system, I’m hoping will also
come automatic building of .tar.gz, .deb, .rpm and .autopackage
packages. (I will be in touch with the people/guy building the package
for Feisty to see if we can work together with this).
If you find any bugs, have any feature requests (there are already some
features listed on the site and I have more planned) or have any
comments, the sourceforge tracker tools are in place and there is the
mailing list. Check out the website (http://glipper.sourceforge.net) for
info.
Love, Karderio.
Ah, thank you.
Another tip: if you’re pasting into a terminal window, it can be fiddly have to move your hand to the mouse to press the buttons.
Instead, SHIFT+Insert usually does the trick instead.
Here are my notes on the X windows clipboard:
http://www.pixelbeat.org/docs/xclipboard.html
I remember doing this on a Sparc workstation all the way back in 1993.
X11 (which gnome, KDE, etc are all built on) has at least 2 native “cut buffers”. Gnome & KDE might add their own also. There are even apps that will transfer from one kind of cut buffer to the other.
Anyways, X11 has always been left mouse to select, middle to paste. Sun has keyboard keys for cut & paste that I see people using. I always wonder why they want to use a keystroke when Suns have 3 button mice.
As the previous poster says, I’ve been using middle mouse paste since 1992 on SunOS 4.x and Linux 0.93pl??? on SLS (before Slackware, Gnome, KDE, etc)
As the guy said above, this has been around longer than… well, I have.
Awesome tip!
wow, I remember when people used to complain about linux’s lack of a singular clipboard (not ready for the desktop lol), now it’s a feature.
I once had to copy/paste several hundred fields from a pdf to a spreadsheet, middle-click X-style copy saved me a lot of time.
[…] about a time saver when copying text between applications — like Firefox and the terminal. Cut, Copy, Paste: Clipboard Management [Ubuntu […]
What is the Dejа vu? What is this fleeting imprinted in the memory?
P.S. Please administrator ubuntu.wordpress.com. If the thread is not to be in category этот, I ask you to move my thread to the correct category.
Tramadol often bake this pie in foul and this is the best resource on bargaining a search minus which contains all of the massacre or report. …
>I use Xfce, and it has it’s own clipboard manager (Clipman)
Thanks for help. I was searching clipboard for XFCE 🙂
This tip works for me. THANKS. (Use left and right mouse buttons at same time). I am on a Win Vista box, using PuTTY to my debian Linux box. I have a 3-button mouse. middle button wouldn’t paste from windows app to PuTTY vi session. Neither would SHIFT + INSERT. But clicking both left and right mouse buttons works.
Thanks for mouse tip, no other apps is Worthing to install beside it. Wish you the best.
>You can highlight some text, and then go to another window or
>application, click where you want to paste the highlighted text,
>and then middle-click. If your mouse has no middle button, then
>you can click both the left and right buttons together to create
>the middle-click.
I had the above working on most of my linux machines for
some time now. I have recently installed Ubunty Hardy on
a laptop and the above feature does not work.
Glipper, by default was not installed and I thought may be
installation of it would fix it, but didn’t.
Any suggestions/pointers?
Thanks
Hi SA,
Wish I could help with that. I’m a linux newb, old timer Windows fanatic.
I have a question as well.
I’ve got Ubuntu 8.10, I was not able to find Glipper pre-installed. I used the Synaptics Package Manager and installed it.
The question is:
How do I run it now? I can’t find any additions to the Applications menu that would allow me to load it.
Do I have to find it somewhere and create a launcher (shortcut) for it?
Best wishes,
Clif
Well, well.
Nevermind. I found it by right clicking on the application panel at the top of the screen. Once I added it there, it seems to be running.
I’ll keep learning. Maybe some day I can comfortably do without Microsoft … but then, what will I write about in my newsletters?
LOL
I use Linux since 1998. I tried to use Mac on my work (I’m a software developer), but after one year I was wishing I had my Linux back. Since last year I’m happy user of Ubuntu 8.10.
My major complaint is cross-application copy and paste: sometimes I want to copy from (say) Evolution to Firefox, or from Firefox to OpenOffice and it simply doesn’t work!!!
This is such a basic desktop feature that I can’t believe it doesn’t work.
What’s up, is there anybody else here?
If it’s not just all bots here, let me know. I’m looking to network
Oh, and yes I’m a real person LOL.
Later,
[…] der Manager der Zwischenablage unter Gnome hat auch einen Fan unter ubuntu.wordpress.com. Installation mit sudo apt-get install […]
Ok, back in the olden days, before gnome, kde, etc … we used X/Windows. X/Windows has the X-Buffer, a clipboard. You select with the left mouse button and paste with the middle button. It work – EVERY TIME.
Then KDE, GNOME, etc … come alone for FUCK WITH THAT. They break copy/paste from xterms into anything. Firefox screws with it even more. Has FF copy/paste ever actually worked on Linux? Seriously? I’ve been plagued with copy/paste issues in firefox/mozilla for 10+ years. It’s 2010 and still, no working copy/paste in FF 3.5.x?
Sorry, I’m a little pissed right now. Can’t paste a 55+ character password into a forum – or paste anything into FF. I’m running clipman – no good.
Again, I ask, why screw with X-Windows copy/paste? Perhaps I should be pissed at KeePassX?
reliancenationalinsurancecompany
Not long ago, I did not
It`s available in Edgy too.
You can get Glipper for Edgy by using Automatix.
Peter Gasston, no need to use Automatix in order to install Glipper in Edgy. sudo apt-get install glipper will do
Another tip: if you’re pasting into a terminal window, it can be fiddly have to move your hand to the mouse to press the buttons.
thanky ou
Nice… if it works. But… Where is it or how does it work, goddamn?? no manual !
I’d like to actually manage the copied stuff..
(Svetove meritko) v domaci politice zalezi ve vyssim poznani, ze
[url=http://revved.carrabian.info/keasky-porn.html]cz se seznamit[/url]
@kelownagurl A couple of users (early Twitter adopters) encountered such an error. Basically the API call hangs instead of returning data.
Mum, whilst you’re at it, could you also buy some lubricant?
Can Someone Find It In Chrome Inspect ? Or Is It Copy And Paste With ClipBoard In Chrome Inspect ?
But over the past few years, IPTV has dwarfed the caliber of DVD and Cable TV.
By this, you are reinforcing that negativity and attracting to yourself
MORE. Trading invites many different sites is extremely frowned upon within the exclusive Bit – Torrent community because it allows anti-piracy groups to
infiltrate private trackers with less effort.
Ѵery good post. I’m exƿeriencinǥ some of these issues
as well..