xclipboard resolves Aqua-X11 copy/paste barrier

Oct 04, '04 09:39:00AM

Contributed by: awolfe_ii

At my job, I use X11 nonstop to access various application servers. Naturally, I often need to interoperate between these servers and my 10.3.5 native applications. I am using Apple's X11 1.0 Xfree86 4.3.0. I have had a major problem doing a copy from Aqua and paste into X11. Copy from X11 and paste into Aqua works fine, but not the other way. The Aqua clipboard would seemingly never paste into anything except xterm -- and that required the stupid option-click nonsense.

Recently I discovered the little X11 utility xclipboard (included with Apple's X11). This has made a big difference (and seems to have exposed a bug). It presents the current contents of the X clipboard, and will also keep a list of clippings that have been made. If I copy in Aqua, then click in xclipboard, then click in my target X11 app, I can paste there. This is pretty low impact for getting things done.

I have also noticed that very often xclipboard displays my Aqua clipping automatically, but then if I click one of my target X11 apps, the previous X11 clip contents get pasted in, superseding what I just copied from Aqua. But then I can get it back by hitting the [Prev] button in xclipboard, and use the same data anyway.

Maybe I have my X11 set up wrong, but even if I do, I can fix it with xclipboard.

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