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The weight of the clipboard

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Re: The weight of the clipboard

#121

Post by function_seven »

mellavora wrote: post #73
function_seven wrote: post #30

I have a tangentially related issue. It's completely irrational, but I can't shake it. Sometimes when writing code, I need to add a block that looks a lot like an existing one, so I'll copy it and paste just below. (Yes, I know, DRY. Sue me :) The irrational part comes in when it's time for me to make the tweaks. Maybe I'm working on a yaml config file, and I need to specify two objects that are mostly the same, with…

A) why is this irrational, and if so, why is irrational sub-optimal given that the issue involves a non-(fully)-rational system (you)? B) The habit seems very effective, why would you want to 'shake' a very efficient process? C) DRY is an end-state which makes sense for (some) code. It is not at all clear that it makes sense for i.e. yaml config files, where it is expected that numerous items may have many similariti…

A, B) I'm not sure I did a good job illustrating with my example. But there are times when the new text needs to appear above the text I copied. In that case, I'll take extra effort to paste the section to edit above the existing, to make sure I'm editing the "new" text. Even if it takes a bit more effort to position my cursor above the copied text.

So in vim, I might yank an entire line and paste it immediately ("yyp"). This automatically pastes below the yanked line and positions the cursor on the new line. But let's say I want to make the edit above the existing. This situation is wrong. The new line was just pasted below the existing. Even though I'm looking at a pair of perfectly identical lines in the file, and could make my edit wherever I choose, I have this idea that one of those lines is the original and the other is the copy. And I don't want to edit the original. In other words, whether I "do it wrong" or "do it right", the end result will be bit-for-bit identical. But one of those edit paths bothers me and the other one doesn't.

So in the yanking and pasting process, I'll take the extra time to move my cursor above the copied line, then paste it in so as to preserve the "lineage" of the text.

This has nothing to do with version control or any other actual efficiencies. It's just my brain being weird. I don't gain any actual benefit, just a calm mind :)

C) Yeah, I was just heading off any nitpicks about my comment.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#122

Post by TuringTest »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #91

I'm happy someone has vocalized this same nagging feeling I have had for all these years. I just wish it had been addressed instead in the form of haiku. Maybe someone can try. The other thing that has bothered me all these years: Head down and typing, Whoops, no text field selected. Where did the text go?

Jef Raskin in The Humane Interface complained about that very problem.

He designed a whole user interaction paradigm to solve it, so that the system would always be in a state where your typed text would be registered, right there.

It goes well with the aphorism and commandment that "user input is sacred", which all current user interfaces disregard big time.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#123

Post by function_seven »

samatman wrote: post #70
function_seven wrote: post #30

I have a tangentially related issue. It's completely irrational, but I can't shake it. Sometimes when writing code, I need to add a block that looks a lot like an existing one, so I'll copy it and paste just below. (Yes, I know, DRY. Sue me :) The irrational part comes in when it's time for me to make the tweaks. Maybe I'm working on a yaml config file, and I need to specify two objects that are mostly the same, with…

This is very closely related to a merge problem git can't solve which pijul can. Bits have a colour, sure, but they have a(t least one) history as well, and that at least can be reasoned about mathematically.

The irrationality comes from the fact that I end up with exactly the same text file no matter what. My edit path (directed graph of atomic edits that arrive at the new file) can go many ways to the same result, but I find myself hating one path, and liking another. Even in the "good" path results in more keystrokes during editing. When I save my changes to git or svn or whatever, the new file will be the same regardless of edit path taken to create it. But during the editing operations, I had a nagging pull to make sure the characters I changed were from the copy.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#124

Post by carapace »

It's rare to find people reifying these subtle subjective aspects of UI design so clearly. Transience is a deep problem in UI design. Everything from accidentally kicking out the cord and losing your (unsaved) work, to accidentally copying a selection and clobbering the previous contents of the clipboard (that you still also want to paste again too.) Modal dialogs, modes in general, un-undoable changes of all kinds. It's kind of like our UIs are video games in the sense that they are harder to use than they should be. Video games have to have some sort of challenge or they get boring, eh?

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#125

Post by blacksmith_tb »

StingyJelly wrote: post #31
Rygian wrote: post #21

To all of you who stopped worrying thanks to a clipboard manager, how do you handle sensitive contents in your clipboard? For example, I routinely copy-paste my passwords from KeePass, and I have disabled all clipboard management to avoid copies of my passwords lingering around.

Try it. I was initially worried about this. Turns out with KeePassXC and Klipper it Just Works™ and fields copied (via keyboard shortcut) somehow don't get stored in the clipboard history at all.

Yes, KeePassXC actually has a little UI element in the lower right of the window that shows when it will clear a copied password out of the clipboard history.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#126

Post by arantius »

CyberShadow wrote: post #69

I'm working on a clipboard manager, because I'm not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS). - Non-text data (i…

Fast/fuzzy search for pasting.

The clipboard manager I used on Windows, which only works there and hasn't been supported for a while, allowed a "Win+V, type, enter" workflow to very easily search for whatever I "type"d as a substring, and paste that entry. No interacting with menus, no up/down presses, no mouse. I miss that feature.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#127

Post by specialist »

throwaway0a5e wrote: post #106
yepthatsreality wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The tapping is from anxiety. You’re defaulting to a common action. Some people chew their finger nails, some use a fidget spinner. If you want to stop, identify when you’re doing the habit and catch and control yourself, relax, and identify the anxiety.

Or it's just a habit. Not everything needs to be the result of some implied mental health problem.

True.

I just fidget. A lot. I have to concentrate to sit still (meetings are torture). When I'm thinking about a problem, my mental budget is redirected to problem solving, so my fidget inhibiting stops.

Drives a lot of people nuts. Whatever. Go sit somewhere else. I'm sitting over here, away from everyone, minding my own business. I didn't ask you to sit near me.

Everyone's different. Some people hum. Some people "talk aloud" (my kryptonite). Some people do zen flow state. I like to dance, so I put in the ear buds and jam.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#128

Post by BuyMyBitcoins »

CyberShadow wrote: post #94
BuyMyBitcoins wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As someone who used to work with spreadsheets extensively at a bank, I can tell you that some kind of stack/queue functionality would be a godsend. For instance, in this mode you hit Ctrl+C five times, then the subsequent five Ctrl+V actions paste the data in FIFO order. It may not seem like much, but going in between app windows in order to grab data is a big time sink. Being able to copy items sequentially and then…

Thanks for sharing! As I understood, I think many clipboard managers already allow this, or at least, CopyQ and Ditto do. The approach is to just copy all the items you need, and then press "Win+V 5" five times. 5 would paste the fifth item in the history, but every time you did that, it is pulled to the top of the list, putting the next item in that spot. Would this work, or is there more to it?

Thank you for sharing as well, I’ll have to give those two programs a try because they seem to be doing what I was hoping for. Best of luck on your project!

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#129

Post by hateful »

myself248 wrote: post #102
CyberShadow wrote: post #69

I'm working on a clipboard manager, because I'm not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS). - Non-text data (i…

I have always wanted a "clipboard firewall", such that apps on List A can never copy and paste between apps on List B. Basically two separate clipboards. If I want to move things between them, I should open the clipboard manager and manually move an individual item, or bridge the two clipboards for a specified time, after which they go back to being isolated. Is that sensible/practical?

I wonder if it could be done with AutoHotKey. Perhaps having a global script variable for each List. AutoHotKey already supports interacting with the clipboard and targeting different Apps/Windows based on a number of criteria (class, title, exe, pid). So when you hit Ctrl+c or Ctrl+v you would hit logic to direct the clipboard contents to one of your list variables, then when you hit Ctrl+v it would do a similar check. You could even map a different key for a "global" clipboard (e.g. Ctrl+Shift+v or the rightCtrl+v).

All of my AutoHotKey triggers are off of the right control since I noticed a long time ago that I never use it regularly. In the old days (~2004) I would use it to write HTML. Hitting right Control+a for example would surround the text with an and have logic for @ or http: etc - or hitting right Control+l would surround a list of items with . These days I have very few macros, the most useful one being code that will "type" what's on my clipboard rather than paste it which is useful for places that don't allow pasting.

>^v:: SendRaw %clipboard% Return

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