From: Earle Martin Date: 10:19 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Copy and paste, and "undo" An exercise for you to perform: 1) Type some text in your text editor. 2) Select it and copy it (NB, in the "Edit -> Copy" sense, rather than the "X11 highlighted text copy buffer" sense). 3) Choose "undo". 4) Paste. What comes out? If it's the text you just copied, that makes no sense, because you just told your editor to undo the last action - which ought to mean to the editor that you never copied it in the first place. Yet in every text editor I try this in, this isn't the case, and so undoing a copy will not un-clobber your clipboard. Hate.
From: John Sinteur Date: 10:28 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 14-mei-04, at 11:19, Earle Martin wrote: > If it's the text you just copied, that makes no sense Undo refers to the last action on whatever document is active, not to anything else. "Copy" is not seen as an "action on the clipboard" but as an "action on the document" (and thus not in need of an undo since it didn't change your document). "Cut" is seen as an action on the document, so undo will go back to the state the document was in before the cut. I agree what you describe is sometimes very irritating.. but I would hate it even more if an "undo" action for a "Cut" would restore the state of the clipboard and not the state of the document... - -John -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin) iD8DBQFApJFVYffhuCsYUkURAst7AJkBuyqA4F89abQnJf5n1QPKw71VdACgnL+z EAMzmipDkcztWkh9oF1bSdY= =NNV8 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
From: Earle Martin Date: 11:10 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 11:28:53AM +0200, John Sinteur wrote: > Undo refers to the last action on whatever document is active, not to > anything else. Does the menu item say "Undo last document action"? No. It says "Undo". Consequently, I expect it to undo _whatever the last action was_, 100% of the time. Anything less is shit. > I agree what you describe is sometimes very irritating.. but I would > hate it even more if an "undo" action for a "Cut" would restore the > state of the clipboard and not the state of the document... Duh, it should do both.
From: Earle Martin Date: 11:19 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 11:10:32AM +0100, Earle Martin wrote: > Consequently, I expect it to undo _whatever the last action was_, 100% of > the time. Anything less is shit. I'm with Raskin on this one: http://dir.salon.com/tech/col/2000/06/01/undo/ Note the paragraph about Microsoft Word, which states exactly the same thing as my original post.
From: Earle Martin Date: 11:21 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 11:19:41AM +0100, Earle Martin wrote: > I'm with Raskin on this one: > http://dir.salon.com/tech/col/2000/06/01/undo/ Fuckitty fuck. This works: http://dir.salon.com/tech/col/2000/06/01/undo/index.html Now there's a different hate altogether!
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 13:09 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" > Does the menu item say "Undo last document action"? No. It says "Undo". > Consequently, I expect it to undo _whatever the last action was_, 100% of > the time. Anything less is shit. If you have two documents open, do you expect an "undo" on one to undo the action on the other if it was made more recently?
From: Earle Martin Date: 14:43 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 07:09:22AM -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: > > Does the menu item say "Undo last document action"? No. It says "Undo". > > Consequently, I expect it to undo _whatever the last action was_, 100% of > > the time. Anything less is shit. > > If you have two documents open, do you expect an "undo" on one to undo the > action on the other if it was made more recently? If you're unable to see them both at the same time, then I would say "undo" should switch you back to the window where the action you're undoing is and undo it.
From: Earle Martin Date: 14:45 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 02:43:36PM +0100, Earle Martin wrote: > If you're unable to see them both at the same time, then I would say "undo" > should switch you back to the window where the action you're undoing is and > undo it. s/window/document/ Sorry for the assumption there.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 14:55 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" > If you're unable to see [both documents] at the same time, then I would > say "undo" should switch you back to the window where the action you're > undoing is and undo it. Really? What if they're open in different applications? On different computers?
From: Earle Martin Date: 15:00 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 08:55:46AM -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: > > If you're unable to see [both documents] at the same time, then I would > > say "undo" should switch you back to the window where the action you're > > undoing is and undo it. > > Really? > > What if they're open in different applications? > > On different computers? Erm, well then, you use the "undo" in each application. On each computer. I wasn't talking about a system-wide "undo", I was talking about application-wide "undo".
From: Anders =?iso-8859-1?Q?Hellstr=F6m?= Date: 16:03 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" At 15.00 +0100 2004-05-14, Earle Martin wrote: >On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 08:55:46AM -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: >> > If you're unable to see [both documents] at the same time, then I would >> > say "undo" should switch you back to the window where the action you're >> > undoing is and undo it. >> >> Really? >> >> What if they're open in different applications? >> > > On different computers? > >Erm, well then, you use the "undo" in each application. On each computer. I >wasn't talking about a system-wide "undo", I was talking about >application-wide "undo". Well, clipboards are generally system-wide. What would your application-wide= "undo" do with the clipboard if it's been changed by another application? -- Anders Hellstr=F6m
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 16:04 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" > Erm, well then, you use the "undo" in each application. On each computer. I > wasn't talking about a system-wide "undo", I was talking about > application-wide "undo". But the clipboard is a system-wide object. If I cut something into the clipboard in application A and select undo in application B, what happens? For that matter, how do you know two windows containing two documents are in the same application? They may be in separate instances of the same application, either different versions on one computer or on different computers. Making "Undo" mean something other than "Undo in this document" opens up a whole bunch of issues, and anything between "System Wide" and "This Document" is likely to engender all kinds of hate. Which I suppose would be good for this site. Carry on.
From: Earle Martin Date: 16:28 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 10:04:31AM -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: > > Erm, well then, you use the "undo" in each application. On each computer. I > > wasn't talking about a system-wide "undo", I was talking about > > application-wide "undo". > > But the clipboard is a system-wide object. If I cut something into the > clipboard in application A and select undo in application B, what happens? Bugger all, because you didn't do anything in application B, ergo "Undo" is not available.
From: Philip Newton Date: 16:31 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On 14 May 2004 at 16:28, Earle Martin wrote: > On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 10:04:31AM -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: > > > Erm, well then, you use the "undo" in each application. On each > > > computer. I wasn't talking about a system-wide "undo", I was > > > talking about application-wide "undo". > > > > But the clipboard is a system-wide object. If I cut something into > > the clipboard in application A and select undo in application B, > > what happens? > > Bugger all, because you didn't do anything in application B, ergo > "Undo" is not available. What if the clipboard contains "pony". User cuts the text "foo" from application A. User then cuts the text "bar" from application B. User then selects "undo" in application A. What is in the clipboard afterwards? "pony"? "bar"? "foo"? gremlins? Cheers, Philip
From: John Sinteur Date: 16:38 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 On 14-mei-04, at 17:31, Philip Newton wrote: > What if the clipboard contains "pony". > > User cuts the text "foo" from application A. > > User then cuts the text "bar" from application B. > > User then selects "undo" in application A. What is in the clipboard > afterwards? "pony"? "bar"? "foo"? gremlins? > What the user expects is that the document from application A again contains "foo" at the right place. If the user *next* goes to application C, and select "paste", what does he expect to be pasted? I would say "bar", but that's just me. - -John -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.4 (Darwin) iD8DBQFApOfoYffhuCsYUkURAr4pAKDnpiubD77mw8XAjrIz3KDu+K7iwwCdEIP1 PvHhqg7ftyyH877sGeJ8Sgw= =DcD4 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 16:44 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" What the user expects is that "Undo" means "Undo in this document". The solution to the original problem is to have a clipboard manager that lets you jump around in the stack of saved clips. > -- Start of PGP signed section. > -- End of PGP signed section, PGP failed! I'd rant about PGP, too, but that's so last millennium.
From: peter (Peter da Silva) Date: 16:34 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" > Bugger all, because you didn't do anything in application B, ergo "Undo" is > not available. So when I switch to Application A and perform an operation, "Undo" in all other applications becomes disabled? Sounds system-wide to me.
From: Earle Martin Date: 17:13 on 14 May 2004 Subject: Re: Copy and paste, and "undo" On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 10:34:26AM -0500, Peter da Silva wrote: > > Bugger all, because you didn't do anything in application B, ergo "Undo" is > > not available. > > So when I switch to Application A and perform an operation, "Undo" in all > other applications becomes disabled? Don't be silly. If you switch to an application, "undo" means "undo the last thing done in this application". That's all. If that thing affected the clipboard, then undoing it restores the clipboard. Obviously this requires the system to remember a bit more about the clipboard contents, but that's not what I, as the user, give a flying fig about.
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