PC sales Suffer Biggest Slump in years

[wizwor]

Bought two desktops this week. Hope that helps...

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I tend to use keyboard shortcuts - even quicker. Easier to type "Ctrl+V" rather than click a "Paste" button on a toolbar.

Fastest and easiest of all is middle click. I've only ever seen it supported in the X window system.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

Fastest and easiest of all is middle click. I've only ever seen it supported in the X window system.

If you're a two-handed typist, taking your hand off the keyboard to use the mouse slows you down. Doing everything with the keyboard gives the optimal speed (IMHO).

[afv011]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you're a two-handed typist, taking your hand off the keyboard to use the mouse slows you down. Doing everything with the keyboard gives the optimal speed (IMHO).

I think you're rather phrase that as "10 fingered typist". I've seen many "two-handed" typists that wouldn't notice if 8 or their fingers were chopped off. Tangentially, I've read I should phrase this as "8 fingered and 2 thumbed", somebody who knows better can correct me - I recall reading that thumbs are not fingers.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by HarryT

If you're a two-handed typist, taking your hand off the keyboard to use the mouse slows you down. Doing everything with the keyboard gives the optimal speed (IMHO).

Typing is one thing. Working with the text with a mouse is another. Even if you use the [g]vi[m] or [X]Emacs editor and have mastered all the key combinations for moving around, text objects and making selections, you still might want to grab a mouse and use it to select a piece of text in another window or in a console displaying remote system output.
And at that moment the "X window middle click" comes extremely handy.
The X window middle click works like this:
- You select a text using a mouse. You do not need to press any shortcut, use any menu. Just select a piece of text. It gets automatically copied into a special "mouse clipboard". So it won't mess the text you have put into the standard clipboard ten minutes earlier using the Ctrl+V or Ctrl+Insert or
- You place a cursor at the desired place and make short middle-click. Your text from the "mouse clipboard" is inserted at the cursor point.

If you only have an antique two-button mouse, you select the text and then paste it using right+left click (press two buttons simultaneously)

I have spent *lots* of time looking for a program that would provide that functionality on Windows. I have found two solutions but none of those works as seamlessly as the X window has been working since ancient times. It worked even on text terminals without x window.

On Windows, putty program supports paste by middle-click, but you have to copy the text manually into a regular clipboard.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by kacir

Typing is one thing. Working with the text with a mouse is another. Even if you use the [g]vi[m] or [X]Emacs editor and have mastered all the key combinations for moving around, text objects and making selections, you still might want to grab a mouse and use it to select a piece of text in another window or in a console displaying remote system output.

Certainly I agree with you. I was thinking more of the much more common situation of moving text around inside the document you're working on. Mastering Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, is often a lot quicker than using the mouse.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by kacir

Typing is one thing. Working with the text with a mouse is another. Even if you use the [g]vi[m] or [X]Emacs editor and have mastered all the key combinations for moving around, text objects and making selections, you still might want to grab a mouse and use it to select a piece of text in another window or in a console displaying remote system output.
And at that moment the "X window middle click" comes extremely handy.

Exactly. But I suppose people using Windows in Window way do not use more than one window so they to not see a need to cut from other windows.

One annoying thing is that I have lost the middle button on my Dell XPS13 Ubuntu Edition. I cannot find how to get it to work in a reasonable way with the touchapd so I have to use Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V instead. Very irritating.

[tompe]

Originally Posted by HarryT

Certainly I agree with you. I was thinking more of the much more common situation of moving text around inside the document you're working on. Mastering Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, is often a lot quicker than using the mouse.

For that use case the editors text moving commands are always better and faster. In emacs the Windows cut method would not work at all. So when you need the application independent way is when moving text between applications.

[HarryT]

Originally Posted by tompe

Exactly. But I suppose people using Windows in Window way do not use more than one window so they to not see a need to cut from other windows.

I spend a large proportion of my days writing technical manuals, installation instructions, etc, for software, so copying from other apps into Word is something that's very important to me.

[WT Sharpe]

I switch up between keyboard shortcuts and mouse menus depending on what I'm doing. For some tasks I use both with approximate equal frequency. I've also discovered the occasional dialog box that won't allow me to paste text with my mouse, but accepts control + v with no hesitation.

[kacir]

Originally Posted by tompe

One annoying thing is that I have lost the middle button on my Dell XPS13 Ubuntu Edition. I cannot find how to get it to work in a reasonable way with the touchapd.

Try that right+left simultaneous click

[kacir]

Originally Posted by HarryT

I was thinking more of the much more common situation of moving text around inside the document you're working on. Mastering Ctrl-C, Ctrl-X, Ctrl-V, is often a lot quicker than using the mouse.

Do give Gvim editor a try.
I very seldom suggest to people to seriously consider using it, because it has a steep learning curve and when I do make such suggestion, it is the highest form of flattery from me ;-). You have to be a special kind of technical person to utilize its full power.

Have a look at Gvim, moving around the text, selecting the text, utilizing text objects, choosing from the *vast* number of command permutations. It has very strong support for the use of Regular Expressions, several built-in languages for macros, programming, extending, and automating work with text.

I am pretty sure that if I had an opportunity to sit down with you and show you cool things it can do, you would end up as a convert ;-)

[HarryT]

Thanks for the recommendation; I'll certainly take a look at it.

[Katsunami]

"Take a look" at VIM? You can't. It'll blow your mind. You don't really edit text; you're constantly issuing commands to have text edited by VIM. (And no, there are no VIM modes; not IMHO. Using "i" is just the command used to start inserting text.)

I am able to use the basics, in case I need to work on a Unix/Linux system and need an editor in the terminal, but I could never adapt to it to make it my main editor.

[HarryT]

Oh, it's a "vi" clone, is it? I know "vi" like the back of my hand; used it for years on Unix systems during my "former life" as a radio astronomer.