Bug 91445 - Copying a part (for example: phone number) of a displayed V-Card copies the whole V-Card into clipboard
Summary: Copying a part (for example: phone number) of a displayed V-Card copies the w...
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: kab3
Classification: Miscellaneous
Component: general (show other bugs)
Version: unspecified
Platform: unspecified All
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Tobias Koenig
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-10-16 15:05 UTC by Martin Steigerwald
Modified: 2009-08-05 17:05 UTC (History)
4 users (show)

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Description Martin Steigerwald 2004-10-16 15:05:53 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.3.0)
Installed from:    Debian testing/unstable Packages
OS:                Linux

Hello,

when I copy a part of a displayed V-Card in KDE Address book via Ctrl-C (Copy and Paste) the addressbook copies the whole VCard into the clipboard.

This is unpractical, since I just marked the phone number to paste it into an E-Mail, but I get the whole VCard when I press Strg-V.

So if something is marked, it should only copy the marked part, elsewise the whole V-Card. 

Regards,
Martin
Comment 1 Tobias Koenig 2004-10-18 11:56:56 UTC
On Sat, Oct 16, 2004 at 01:05:54PM -0000, Martin Steigerwald wrote:
> Hello,
Hi Martin,

> when I copy a part of a displayed V-Card in KDE Address book via Ctrl-C
> (Copy and Paste) the addressbook copies the whole VCard into the clipboard.
There are two types of clipboards under Unix/X11. The first is used when
you press Ctrl-C and normally applications store objects in it (a text
editor as special case text).

The second clipboard is used whenever you select text with the mouse.
Then the text is copied to the clipboard automatically and you can
retrieve it with the middle mouse button.

Ciao,
Tobias
Comment 2 m.wege 2004-10-21 00:18:18 UTC
Hi Tobias,

I just wanted to report the same "bug". It works like you explaind. Still I believe that for most users, or at least users who switch from windows, this is not obvious and they get confuses by the way this is handled. May be you could make it configurable or in a other way more obvious who this works
Comment 3 Martin Steigerwald 2004-10-21 10:58:07 UTC
Hello Tobias,

well I know these two types of clipboard. I just did not think of trying out the other one. Thanks for the hint. But still IMHO even Ctrl-C should only copy what I marked, that at least how it works in a text editor. It doesn't copy the whole text, but only the marked section of it. If nothing is marked KAdressBook can still copy the whole V-Card.

Regards,
Martin
Comment 4 Tobias Koenig 2004-10-21 11:11:47 UTC
On Wed, Oct 20, 2004 at 10:18:19PM -0000, Mark Wege wrote:
> Hi Tobias,
Hi Mark,

> I just wanted to report the same "bug". It works like you explaind.
> Still I believe that for most users, or at least users who switch
> from windows, this is not obvious and they get confuses by the way
> this is handled.
That's the Unix way to do, we don't want to provide a Windows like GUI,
but a GUI for Unix Operating Systems, so I see no reason why changing
it.

Ciao,
Tobias
Comment 5 m.wege 2005-05-17 23:28:32 UTC
Hi Tobias,
I wanted to ask to reconsider this. There was a lot about the kontact-applications and usability to read in the past days. The current solution is not userfriendly at all, because it is not intuitive. The way of marking things and then finding it in the clipboard is not intuitive. I am using KDE now for more then a year and is still use STRC-C accidently. How about discussing this, with your usability people? The problem is not that that you have the unix-solution of a clipboard, the problem is that STRG-C acts totally unexpected. I can remember an application where I mark only a part (like the mailadress), everything else (Name, phoneno.) gets into the clipboard. So I would suggest to change the STRC-C behaviour to a normal one and move the VCARD-feature into a button with also can be accessed by a short-cut. Similar as I suggested with the map feature, which no one really expects there.
Comment 6 Dragan Espenschied 2006-09-29 17:35:54 UTC
I do not quite understand, is this bug marked as "resolved" because the behaviour was changed or because it is regarded that it is good the "unix way"?

The behaviour to copy the whole VCard into the clipboard is, as Mark Wege wrote, totally surprising and as far as i know never happens in any other KDE application.

I think the best solution would be to copy the whole VCard info if nothing specific is selected and copy just the text when something is selected. It is really annoying if you want to copy a phone number to an email message and have to consider that kaddressbook uses a bit of an exceptional copy-paste. It happens to me every time i want to perform this task. 

And just now i thought it was once too much and i want to file a bug. :)

Best greetings,
drx
Comment 7 haibach 2006-11-05 16:01:26 UTC
I also want to add my opinion here as everyday I have the same problem with this feature. It just doesn't find the way to get usual. Maybe I'm too silly but after all this is really completely different from what anyone would expect. 

What about placing a little copy icon next to every entry which copies the content to the clipboard. Everything else could stay the same as no one would think about marking some text to copy it anymore.
Comment 8 Christoph Burgmer 2006-12-10 17:29:08 UTC
This way of handling Ctrl+C is stupid. I was just going to file a bug report on that, when I stumbled upon this "Resolved" case. Please reconsider. These comments here show that there obviously is a problem.
Comment 9 Dotan Cohen 2008-11-22 18:35:19 UTC
*** Bug 135420 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
Comment 10 Dotan Cohen 2008-11-22 18:42:16 UTC
This is very unintuitive behaviour. When a user highlights text then activates Copy (be it by mouse, keyboard shortcut, right-click menu or main menu) then he expects the text that he selected to be copied. I know of no other application that behaves in this fashion. I am reopening this bug as a usability issue.
Comment 11 Dotan Cohen 2008-12-11 10:48:13 UTC
I can confirm this bug from a usability standpoint. My wife tried to copy a phone number from Kontact using the keyboard Ctrl-C Ctrl-V shortcuts. She got "all this code" and could not copy a phone number.

Users do not need to know that "all this code" is a vcard. They copied a PHONE NUMBER not a VCARD so that is what they expect to be pasted.

Note: Copying with the X11 clipboard (highlight to copy, middle mouse button to paste) works as expected.
Comment 12 Romain Henriet 2009-01-03 12:05:24 UTC
I totally agree, copying the entire vcard is really surprising and cumbersome.
Comment 13 Tobias Koenig 2009-08-05 16:16:58 UTC
The development of the old KAddressBook will be discontinued for KDE 4.4.
Since the new application has the same name, but a completly new code base we close all bug reports against the old version and ask the submitters to resend there reports against the new product.
Comment 14 Dragan Espenschied 2009-08-05 17:05:22 UTC
> The development of the old KAddressBook will be discontinued for KDE 4.4.
> Since the new application has the same name, but a completly new code base 
> we close all bug reports against the old version and ask the submitters to
> resend there reports against the new product.

I wonder if this is the right way to handle this problem. The bug is less about a "technical" bug than an "attitude" bug. Maybe the new QT version solves it automatically, it would be quick to check that and mark the bug as solved or keep it when it still occurs.

Anyway, thanks for going on with the address book.