GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 104827
mouse selection doesn't use X selection unless SHIFTed
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
Using vte-0.10.8 with gnome-terminal 2.1.4 out of garnome-0.20.0, selecting text with the mouse doesn't place the selected text in the X selection (XA_PRIMARY) buffer unless one uses the shift key while selecting. This is non-standard X behaviour. If the current behaviour is intentional and kept, there should be a menu option (perhaps under profiles) for setting the standard X behaviour, instead (so that unshifted mouse selection uses the PRIMARY selection as well). Either way, the behaviour should probably be documented somewhere (either in gnome-terminal or in vte).
I can't reproduce this with 0.10.15. Specifically, text I select in gnome-terminal pastes into xterm using either the middle button or shift+insert without problems. If you're selecting text while running a mouse-aware application in the terminal, then this is expected because click and drag events are being sent to the application, and holding down the shift key overrides that.
Report retracted. I was seeing strangeness in the selection mechanism, and used gcm (Gnome Clipboard Manager) to track it down, and that only showed the selection being updated with the SHIFT key down. On retrospect, however, it is possible that the gcm, having been launced from the same terminal, was capturing the unshifted selection. I will continue to dig to figure out the (apparently unrelated) selection strangeness I experience sporadically. Thanks.