Jabref: JabRef and the X Window clipboard/selections

[gregoa]

[JabRef version 3.8~pre2+ds-1 from Debian/experimental. But the issue is not specific to this version.]

The X Window System has usually three "selections": primary/XA_PRIMARY - copying by highlighting with the first mouse button, pasting by clicking the third (middle) button; secondary/XA_SECONDARY (never seen this in action); and clipboard/XA_CLIPBOARD which acts like the clipboard on e.g. Windows (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V and copy/paste menu items or buttons).

It seems that JabRef only supports the last version (the "clipboard"). This can be seen e.g.

• in the "Copy DOI URL" function which copies the URL into the XA_CLIPBOARD selection (and not (also) into XA_PRIMARY);
• in the "New entry from plain text" dialog, where (first of all neither middle-clicking/XA_PRIMARY nor Ctrl-V/XA_CLIPBOARD in the text box does anything but) using the "Paste" button pastes the contents of the XA_CLIPBOARD selection.

I don't know how to make Java under X11 use the XA_PRIMARY selection as well but I'm sure this is not the first time in the history of Java that this question comes up :)

Cheers,
gregor

[Siedlerchr]

Thanks for your report, this seems to be a java problem. I found some info
about in this German java book which states that java currently cannot use
the secondary clipboard:

http://openbook.rheinwerk-verlag.de/javainsel9/javainsel_19_025.htm

However, primary is supported

[koppor]

With JavaFX it seems to be impossible (?): How can I read the X11 clipboard from a JavaFX application?. So strange that this seems not to be discussed on stackoverflow... I am now playing around with Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemSelection().

[koppor]

@snisnisniksonah found https://bugs.openjdk.java.net/browse/JDK-8088117:

Using JavaFX-8 with Java8u45 on SUSE11, there is no possibility to copy/paste using mouse selection or using a click on the scroll. See details here: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/30032290/javafx-mouse-clipboard-does-not-work-in-unix

The solution won't satisfy you:

Lowering the priority to P4. I note that this is more of an unimplemented feature than a bug (it has never been supported in FX). We will look at it for JDK 9.
Workaround: use copy/paste (CTRL-C / CTRL-V)

Reading @glaubitz (https://lists.debian.org/debian-java/2017/08/msg00024.html), I have the hope, there could be someone "just" implementing that.

[koppor]

Since this is not possible to implement, I close the issue.

Having the hope that JDK9 or JDK10 can solve that, I added on-hold label and close the issue for now.

[koppor]

I rechecked the issue on openjdk and it is still not implemented.

[koppor]

There is a SO answer from Feb 2019: https://stackoverflow.com/a/54530538/873282. Needs to be checked.

[davidemdot]

Hey! I would like to work on this issue, if it is available :"D

[koppor]

Go ahead! 👍

[koppor]

@gregoa We worked on it and think, we fixed it. Could you try the latest build at https://builds.jabref.org/master and report back if it works for you.

[gregoa]

On Sun, 27 Oct 2019 07:31:16 -0700, Oliver Kopp wrote:

@gregoa We worked on it and think, we fixed it. Could you try the
latest build at https://builds.jabref.org/master and report back if
it works for you.

I tried with the linux portable version, and I can confirm that it
works, i.e. I can both Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V and
select/paste-with-middle-click.

Thanks for implementing this feature!

Cheers,
gregor

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