Key Bindings for Copy and Paste Under X11 (Shallow Thoughts)

Key Bindings for Copy and Paste Under X11

In the previous article I wrote about how the two X selections, the primary and clipboard, work. But I glossed over the details of key bindings to copy and paste the two selections in various apps.

That's because it's complicated. Although having the two selections available is really a wonderful feature, I can understand why so many people are confused about it or think that copy and paste just generally doesn't work on Linux -- because apps are so woefully inconsistent about their key bindings, and what they do have is so poorly documented.

"Why don't they all just use the standard Ctrl-C, Ctrl-V?" you ask. (Cmd-C, Cmd-V for Mac users, but I'm not going to try to include the Mac versions of every binding in this article; Mac users will have to generalize.)

Simple: those keys have well-known and very commonly used bindings already, which date back to long before copy and paste were invented.

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