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Maintaining selection when switching windows

I like to use "Paste Selection" in Terminal. The workflow is:


1. highlight some text in one Terminal window

2. click on another Terminal window

3. trigger "Paste Selection"


My problem, and I think it has only started since upgrading to 10.8 (certainly this used to work at some point) is that the selection that is highlighted changes when I click on another Terminal window. I don't think I can be accidently clicking in the original window as otherwise the new window wouldn't become active.


It doesn't always happen - may 50% of the time. The new selection usually inlcudes part of the originally highlighted text and tends to go for 10s of lines.


Unfortunately it makes "Paste Selection" to unreliable for safe usage (becuase I don't always remember ot check if the highlight has changed in the other window before pasting).


Anyone know why this happens or what can be done about it?


Thanks,


Andrew

iMac (24-inch Early 2008), OS X Mountain Lion (10.8.5)

Posted on Oct 20, 2013 6:30 AM

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6 replies

Oct 20, 2013 7:10 AM in response to cqexbesd

Update: Now I am trying to restrict myself to cmd-C, cmd-V to avoid the effect of the selection changing, it seems that what is on the clipboard is changing anyway as, if the selection changes, what comes out with cmd-V is the new selection as well.


If I just select random text and paste the text that comes out is whatever was last copied - i.e. its not that selection has some how become an automatic copy like X.


I can only guess that the copied text is looked after by the Terminal app until it comes time to paste. Terminal somehow tracks the copied text the same way it does the selection and there is a bug.


All very strange, esp if I am the only one its happening to.

Maintaining selection when switching windows

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