NAME¶
xcb - X Cut Buffers - Pigeon holes for your cut and paste selections.
SYNOPSIS¶
xcb [
Xt option] [
-l layout] [
-n
count] [
-p|
-s|
-S list] [
-r
count]
DESCRIPTION¶
Xcb provides easy access to the cut buffers built into every X server. It
allows the buffers to be manipulated either via the command line, or with the
mouse in a point and click manner. The buffers can be used as holding pens to
store and retrieve arbitrary data fragments. Any number of cut buffers may be
created, so any number of different pieces of data can be saved and recalled
later. By default, 8 cut buffers are created. The program is designed
primarily for use with textual data.
Xcb has two modes of operation. Normally
xcb provides an array of
windows on your display, one per cut buffer, tiled horizontally, vertically,
or in some user specified layout. Each window displays the contents of its
respective cut buffer. Data can be cut from and pasted to the windows in a
similar manner to xterm. The buffers can also be rotated.
In task mode,
xcb lets you access the cut buffers from the command line.
Cut buffers can be loaded from stdin, copied or concatenated to stdout, loaded
using the current PRIMARY selection, or rotated an arbitrary number of
positions. In this mode of operation,
xcb performs the requested task
and then exits. It does not create any windows and has no interaction with the
mouse or keyboard.
OPTIONS¶
Xcb supports the full set of X Toolkit Intrinsics options, as well as
those listed below.
Xcb options can appear in any order. The presence
of the
-p,
-r,
-s or
-S options causes
xcb
to execute in task mode, described above.
- -l layout
- This option controls the geometry arrangement of
xcb's subwindows. It is the command line equivalent of the
.layout resource, described below.
- -n count
- Create count cut buffers. Count can be any
integer greater than zero. This option is the command line equivalent of
the .bufferCount resource, described below.
- -u
- Use utf-8 instead of the current locale settings when
executing in task mode and doing I/O.
- -V
- Print the xcb release version number and exit
immediately.
- -p list
- Print the contents of the listed buffer(s) on stdout. The
buffered data is printed exactly as it is stored in the server. Selecting
two or more buffers has the effect of concatenating the data on stdout.
The cut buffers are numbered from 0... onwards. The list can be either a
single digit, a comma separated list of digits, a range of the form m-n,
or some combination of lists and ranges. The buffers are printed in listed
order, so repeated numbers in the list can be used to duplicate buffer
contents.
- -r count
- Rotate the buffers by count positions. Count
can be any integer, positive or negative. This option may be used in
conjunction with the -n count option to rotate a specific
number of buffers. If the -n option is not used, xcb will
rotate the number of buffers given by the .bufferCount
resource.
- -s list
- Store the data from stdin in the listed buffer(s). If the
list refers to two or more buffers, the input data is duplicated in each
buffer. Refer to the -p option for the definition of a list.
- -S list
- Store the current PRIMARY selection data in the listed
buffer(s). The data is converted to a string representation. If the list
refers to two or more buffers, the PRIMARY selection is duplicated in each
buffer. Refer to the -p option for the definition of a list. Under
the -S option xcb waits for the nominated cut buffer's contents to change
before exiting. If no change is detected within 3 seconds, xcb exits with
a non-zero return code.
The
xcb widget hierarchy consists of a collection of custom buffer
widgets, one per cut buffer. In the Athena version of the program, these
buffer widgets are all contained within a single Athena form widget. In the
Motif version of the program, they are each enclosed by Motif frame widgets,
and the frame widgets are all contained within a single Motif RowColumn
widget.
The names of the buffer widgets are "buffer0", "buffer1",
"buffer2", .... etc., and their class name is "Buffer".
Each buffer widget supports all the standard core widget resources, plus the
.foreground and
.fontSet resources.
Application wide resources are as follows:
.bufferCount (default value 8)
This is the number of buffer widgets to create.
Any number of widgets (greater than zero) can be created.
.layout (default value "h")
Only the first character of the resource value is significant.
This is the geometry arrangement to apply in the container widget.
The layout can be "h" (horizontal), "v" (vertical), or some
other value to disable the inbuilt geometry code and specify
the layout via your X resources. An example is provided in the
application default resources file.
EVENTS and TRANSLATIONS¶
Xcb's input semantics are coded into a Toolkit translation table. The
default bindings have been chosen to conform with the default configuration of
other cut and paste clients, such as xterm. The bindings may be altered or
overridden according to your needs. The actions functions provided by
xcb are:-
cut() causes the contents of the chosen cut buffer to become
the PRIMARY selection. The window contents, if any,
are highlighted, and can then be pasted into other
cut buffers or applications.
paste() causes the value of the PRIMARY selection to be
converted into text and pasted into the chosen cut
buffer, overwriting any previous buffer contents.
If no PRIMARY selection is present, xcb pastes
the contents of cut buffer zero into the chosen buffer.
clear() clears the chosen cut buffer.
rotate(NN) rotates the cut buffers by NN positions. NN may
be any positive or negative number.
refresh() causes the cut buffer window to be cleared and redrawn.
selreq() this action function handles paste requests
from other clients, or other xcb windows.
It should always be bound to SelectionRequest events.
selclear() this action function responds to the loss of
ownership of the PRIMARY selection property.
It should always be bound to SelectionClear events.
quit() causes xcb to terminate.
The default bindings are as follows:-
<Btn1Down>: cut() \n\
Shift <Btn2Down>: clear() \n\
<Btn2Down>: paste() \n\
Shift <Btn3Down>: rotate(-1) \n\
<Btn3Down>: rotate(1) \n\
<Key>Left: rotate(-1) \n\
<Key>Right: rotate(1) \n\
<Key>Up: rotate(-1) \n\
<Key>Down: rotate(1) \n\
<Key>q: quit() \n\
<SelReq>: selreq() \n\
<SelClr>: selclear()
EXAMPLES¶
The following are some examples of
xcb task mode usage:-
xcb -s 0-7 < /dev/null
This clears the first 8 cut buffers in your server.
echo "G'day." | xcb -display bigears:0.0 -s 1,3,5,7
This loads the string "G'day." into four of the cut buffers on the
display "bigears".
xsendevent -win buffer5 '<Btn1Down>'
This uses the program xsendevent to send a synthetic mouse click event to an xcb
subwindow, thereby making that window the owner of the PRIMARY selection.
ls `xcb -p 2,3`
This produces a listing of all the files named in cut buffers 2 and 3.
xcb -p 0-7 | xcb -s 0
This concatenates the values in the first 8 cut buffers, and places the result
back in cut buffer zero.
xcb -S 0 && xcb -p 0
The first command copies the current PRIMARY selection into the first cut
buffer. If the copy succeeds, then the second command prints that data on
stdout.
for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
do
xcb -p $i > $HOME/.xcb/$i
done
for i in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
do
xcb -s $i < $HOME/.xcb/$i
done
This first loop saves the contents of each of the cut buffers in a separate file
under your home directory. The second loop restores the cut buffer contents
from those files. When placed in your .logout and .login scripts respectively,
the commands are a simple method of preserving your cut buffers across login
sessions.
function g {
echo "$1\\c" | xcb -s 7
grep "$@"
}
function vg {
vi +/`xcb -p 7` "$@"
}
These two shell functions exemplify a simple mechanism for saving and reusing
regular expressions. The first function saves the regex used for grep-ing into
cut buffer 7. The second function reuses the most recent grep regex as a
search command in vi. There is considerable scope for expanding and improving
these ideas.
SEE ALSO¶
xterm(1),
xcutsel(1),
xclipboard(1),
xprop(1)
Athena Widget Set - C Language Interface
Motif Programmers Reference Guide
AUTHORS¶
Current Maintainer (I18n version)
Marc Lehmann
E-mail: pcg@goof.com
Original Author
Farrell McKay
E-mail: Farrell.McKay@mpx.com.au
XView modifications provided by Danny Vanderryn
E-mail: dvanderr@us.oracle.com
COPYRIGHT¶
Copyright (C) 1992,1993,1994 by Farrell McKay.
Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software and its
documentation for any purpose and without fee is hereby granted, provided that
the above copyright notice appears in all copies and that both that copyright
notice and this permission notice appear in supporting documentation. This
software is provided "as is" without express or implied warranty.
BUGS :-)¶
Xlib's underlying protocol for moving selection data between client and server
can sometimes be slow, depending on the amount of data involved. Do not expect
fast performance if your selections are big or you want to store big files in
your cut buffers! ("big" means, say, over 10k bytes - but your
mileage may vary).