Bug 498715

Summary:	Enable saving of selection even when synchronization is disabled
Product:	[Plasma] plasmashell	Reporter:	Chris Spiegel <cspiegel>
Component:	Clipboard widget & pop-up	Assignee:	Plasma Bugs List <plasma-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED DUPLICATE
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	kdedev, nate
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	6.2.5
Target Milestone:	1.0
Platform:	Other
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Chris Spiegel 2025-01-16 01:26:30 UTC

I'm requesting that "Always save in history" be enabled unconditionally, i.e. regardless of whether "Keep the selection and clipboard the same" is checked.

I use PRIMARY, I'd say, around 80% of the time I'm copying/pasting. As such, it is extraordinarily helpful for me to keep a history of it, because it's my main way of dealing with selections. History is especially useful for PRIMARY since it's so easy to accidentally select another piece of text, wiping out your previous selection.

At the same time, I want PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD to be separate: when I explicitly copy something, I don't expect a selection later on to overwrite it.

In short, I want my PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD to remain independent (as they normally are in the absence of a clipboard manager), but have Klipper store both of them when a new selection is made.

I'm 99% sure this is a regression (from my perspective), and that Klipper used to operate this way. A few years ago it stopped working as it used to, but I didn't get around to filing a report till now. For reference, this is also how Klipper works in TDE which, although I haven't checked, I imagine hasn't changed much since the KDE3 days.

Comment 1 Nate Graham 2025-01-16 17:04:08 UTC

This would require storing essentially two parallel histories: One for primary selection and one for traditional selection. I'm struggling to imagine a UI for this that's not really confusing for people who aren't clipboard experts.

Comment 2 Chris Spiegel 2025-01-16 17:47:14 UTC

(In reply to Nate Graham from comment #1)
> This would require storing essentially two parallel histories: One for
> primary selection and one for traditional selection. I'm struggling to
> imagine a UI for this that's not really confusing for people who aren't
> clipboard experts.

From my perspective, lumping them all together in one history is completely fine. Yes, you lose the "origin" of the selection, so when you reselect it, it'll be in both PRIMARY and CLIPBOARD. But that, to me, is so much better than accidentally losing my selections.

I do understand that this change, however implemented, could be confusing for those not well-versed in X's selections.

Comment 3 Nate Graham 2025-01-16 18:21:54 UTC

> lumping them all together in one history is completely fine
Isn't that what happens when you use the "Keep the selection and clipboard the same" setting?

Comment 4 Nate Graham 2025-01-16 18:23:47 UTC

Ah I get it, you don't want them synced, just that primary selection gets added to the history without needing to be synced with the traditional selection (and vice versa).

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of bug 492840 ***