Re: selected text is PRIMARY?

[James Henstridge <james jamesh id au>]

Yevgen Muntyan wrote:

> Brian J. Tarricone wrote:
>
>>> mozilla allows user having multiple selections, and it doesn't
>>> clear selection when you select something else. It's not buggy,
>>> it's correct (not for everyone, of course).
>>
>> Not according to accepted practice.  At the very least (not even talking
>> about any kind of spec), one could argue that, since moz/ffx uses gtk,
>> it should emulate gtk's behavior.
>
> "Accepted" here is what we currently have. I claim that mozilla
> is right, and it correctly does not emulate wrong gtk behavior.
> (right and wrong for many people, not for everybody, etc., etc.)

The classic PRIMARY selection model used in X only really works if all
apps follow the rules.  That is, only the text in the PRIMARY selection
is displayed as selected.

If some apps ignore the rules then you can end up with two pieces of
text that appear to be selected.  This makes it ambiguous what the
middle-click paste will do.

So if you want to allow multiple selections at once, there are two options:

    * get rid of the concept of PRIMARY and middle-click paste.
    * figure out some way to allow the user to distinguish between
      "selected text" and "selected text that is also PRIMARY" without
      confusing the issue further.

Both of these options would probably require coordination with other
toolkit/application developers.

Under the current scheme used in X, Mozilla is clearly doing the wrong
thing right now.

James.