Re: Selecting text in a GtkTreeView widget



On Wed, Dec 11, 2002 at 10:45:04AM -0500, Alban Deniz wrote:
Hello,

I tried to post this on 07 Dec, but I don't think it made it to the list. I
received no replies from the previous posting, and I couldn't find it in the
mailing list archives. My apologies if you've already seen this:


I saw your message but didn't reply, because I'm interested in hearing the
answer too :)

I would like to be able to select some text in a GtkTreeView cell
(G_TYPE_STRING) with the left mouse button, and past it into another
application (such as emacs) with the middle mouse button.

As far as I can tell this is a general problem with GTK.  It does not
support copy&paste from any arbitrary text displayed.  You can copy editable
text, but not plain displayed text.  I find it rather irritating too.  
Qt lets you copy any text.  Why doesn't GTK?

It's not just with GtkTreeView, it's with all text-displaying widgets.  I
believe there's something particular you have to do to allow the text to be
copyable.  For instance, GtkLabel has gtk_label_set_selectable().  But I'm
not aware of any general solution to make all text generally "selectable" by
default.

In my opinion, the current situation is a bug.  Being able to copy text is too
useful a function for it (the inability to copy) to be considered a
"desirable feature".  But I guess the GTK designers had their reasons for
banning it.

Drew

-- 
PGP public key available at http://people.debian.org/~dparsons/drewskey.txt
Fingerprint: A110 EAE1 D7D2 8076 5FE0  EC0A B6CE 7041 6412 4E4A

Attachment: pgpWgduD80slG.pgp
Description: PGP signature



[Date Prev][Date Next]   [Thread Prev][Thread Next]   [Thread Index] [Date Index] [Author Index]