Click on the globe-key and choose the “terminal” mode of the keyboard (which is standard in the terminal app, but also useful to switch to the extended keyboard or to have Cut-Paste functionality in other apps) …
… and by clicking “Menu” key, we get the copy / paste / select Menu.
I did not install anything for to get that functionality (Librem 5 Evergreen Oktober 2021)
It brings up the “paste / select all” menu. Then you choose “select all” …
and now?
Ctrl C / V does not work (for me). Hence - how to copy it. Clicking again helps nothing and the clipboard shows empty.
If you don’t need it of have an easier way, just don’t use it.
In general, using the Librem 5, how does a person select a portion of text in any application? For example, with gedit text editor running, there is a paragraph of text in it. I need to select just a couple sentences in the middle of that paragraph to copy to the clipboard. But I can’t figure out how to select that.
Sorry amarok, but if you were responding to me, I don’t see how that answers my question. Example:
I have a text file with this sentence in it -
The lazy fox jumps quickly over the brown log.
I open the text file and see that sentence in it. I wish to copy to the clipboard (so I can eventually paste elsewhere) the words in the middle of that sentence, “fox jumps quickly”.
It requires doing a long press until a word is selected, revealing selection tools under the word. Then you can drag one or both tools to the rest of the snippet you want.
Then in the keyboard, tap Menu to see copy, paste, cut, delete, etc.
Or use the little dialog box with symbols that pops up over the text.
It takes some practice. It helps to drag a little when doing the long press on a word.
If I do a long press in the browser on the text of your answer, I cant select anything. A menu pops up which me also does not select any item of its list. Just give it a shot on my text here in the browser.
In Web I can only select a single word by double-tapping, or the entire text by quadruple-tapping.
In Firefox, double-tapping a word adds the selection tools to each end of the word, which you can drag to the beginning and end of the text you want to copy (using the Menu options in Squeekboard, or the edit tools in the Firefox menu.).
Trying to select in gedit today, I see lots of things happening at the same time when dragging across text:
portions of the text are highlighted (blue background)
little begin and end markers appear
below the text a small magnifying class appears
If I succeed to select the text I wanted, tapping on the end marker brings the ccp menu, so that part actually looks good.
Two concerns, still:
First, it seems to require a lot of practice to get the desired results, e.g., most of the time I could select only entire words, but sometimes I succeeded to let the selection stop in the middle of a word. I couldn’t yet figure out which gesture drives which kind of selection. The selection seems to have its own will, also jumping in unexpected ways. Also the magnifying glass with its animation is quite distracting.
Second, as I don’t see this in other applications, I wonder if we’re at the mercy of developers of each and every application to implement select functionality? Isn’t there a fundamental approach built into wayland / the basic toolkits?
Yeah, it’s definitely quirky. Place your finger or stylus at the desired starting point, then drag to wherever desired. If it selects an entire word or phrase and you want to shorten the selected area, drag one of the end “markers” to the appropriate place. This is much easier with a stylus pen than with a finger.
Tap one of the markers to get cut/copy/paste.
Then tap the screen to de-select the selected text. Long-press elsewhere in the screen (or inside another app) to get the marker again, and touch it to get the Select All or Paste icon.
Hopefully you’ve also discovered the “Terminal” keyboard option in Squeekboard, which includes a “Menu” button with all the select/copy/paste/delete functions. That should help when using all the other apps where copy/paste would be appropriate.
