Is there any kind of solution to saving everything that is cut or copied to some kind of temporary history so you can paste things you copied/cut like an hour ago?
Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
111–120 of 162 posts
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#112> This is not without precedent.
It has an obvious precedent in using cut and paste for moving files in a GUI file manager. When you cut a file, it doesn't disappear, but may be marked somehow (e.g. grayed out) as being the source of a move; it disappears from its original location when the move is completed.
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#113The first point should read "Cut is unundoable"
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#114this is one of those situations where I think the improvement is marginal over the value of standardisation.
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#115Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I cut, undo, ..., undo, and paste multiple times a day. Why would you cut + undo as opposed to just copy? Are they not the same operation at that point?
Have you never copied, tried to paste and you pasted the wrong thing because copy failed? Cut + undo, is copy with visual feedback
Copy and paste gives you visual feedback without reflowing the document. I also use it to intentionally add a marker in undo history in documents in not planning to change, as that way I can use the undo history to jump to different areas.
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#116"Ghost cut" is basically how Excel has always done cut&paste, I think maybe without involving the clipboard at all.
Looks like there are two different expectations of cut&paste. Most software seem to treat it as simply a copy&paste with a "delete" action tacked on, while the author (and Excel) treat it as "move content around inside the document".
I get the author and the frustrating undo behavior but I'd also like to add that Ghost Cut is less flexible than the "traditional" cut&paste interpretation: Ghost Cut expects me to always have exactly one location where I want to move the content and expects that this location is in the same program or even in the same document. Traditional cut&paste doesn't have those limitations.
On the other hand, if traditional cut&paste is just glorified copy&paste anyway, I think not much would be lost by replacing it with the Ghost Cut interpretation - people can still get the "traditional" behavior by doing a copy and then pressing backspace...
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#117Earlier quoted context omitted.
Even if it was 2GB of some data? Even if you run low on memory? TFA and comments are clearly a solution is search of the problem.
Is it possible to copy 2GB of data to the clipboard? If it's an image or something I'd expect the clipboard to contain a reference to the image or some such. How do clipboard managers handle this?
Yes?
Just open a .BMP or .TXT of your desired size, copy it contents to the clipboard, close the app and paste to anywhere else.
Sure, sometimes it's a ref, eg: files, but sometimes it's just plain data.
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
I often cut + undo because seeing the cut is feedback which tells me the operation successfully put the content into clipboard. This is not always a guarantee especially in web apps, and sometimes I just have focus on the wrong window.
How can you be sure that the undo stack is in sync with the clipboard? Wouldn't cut+paste be a more reliable pseudo-copy than cut+undo?
> How can you be sure that the undo stack is in sync with the clipboard?
Simple: they're not meant to be. Undo stack and clipboard are orthogonal. It's like foundational rule of computing.
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#119"Ghost cut" is basically how Excel has always done cut&paste, I think maybe without involving the clipboard at all. Looks like there are two different expectations of cut&paste. Most software seem to treat it as simply a copy&paste with a "delete" action tacked on, while the author (and Excel) treat it as "move content around inside the document". I get the author and the frustrating undo behavior but I'd also like t…
I very often use cut&paste as "delete line" in IDEs by placing cursors anywhere on the target line without selection area.
Winthout selection area, most IDEs cut the whole line. That shortcut is very close to left hand anduch easier than any other way.
Ghost cut would butcher this usecase.
Re: Ghost Cut – Or why Cut and Paste is broken everywhere
#120Cut and Paste is three operations. Cut is two operations copy and delete, copy is never undone by undo it should not be undone when you cut either. I cut, undo, ..., undo, and paste multiple times a day. It's a feature not a bug. > Cut & Paste is not atomic Yes because it's two different actions. What does "Ghost Cut" do if you paste multiple times? Paste the cut text first and then what? The previous thing in your c…
> you could have a separate short cut that grays out the text and then moves it to where you want.
That's basically drag & drop (on macOS).