StrongED Copy Behaviour

Hi,
I noticed that on version 4.69f13 (30-Apr-2023) ctrl-c’s behaviour seems to have changed? To copy text I now have to do a ctrl-c and then a ctrl-v. I was sure that in versions prior to that I could just highlight text and do a ctrl-c to put it where I wanted. If the change has occurred is there a way to revert it back to its old behaviour? It’s now two key presses instead of one and I’m sure that the old behaviour isn’t too much of a barrier to entry into programming on RISC OS, although I know someone made a video saying that remembering key presses like this was a learning curve. I’m paraphrasing here sorry if I misunderstood the issue. I appreciate the work to resolve the long-standing bug where I lost my code a couple of times over the years when my comment lines were too long. Thinking about it though that code needed to be lost because if I was writing code with such comments in it or arguably any comments at all then the code needed to disappear. I also like how the modes are already included in the application. It’s a great piece of software thanks for writing it.

Thanks.

I noticed that on version 4.69f13 (30-Apr-2023) ctrl-c’s behaviour seems to have changed? To copy text I now have to do a ctrl-c and then a ctrl-v. I was sure that in versions prior to that I could just highlight text and do a ctrl-c to put it where I wanted.

You could, but it was behaviour that

1. Had been counter to the Style Guide for a couple of decades,

2. Confused new folk who tried the platform, and

3. Really annoyed anyone who actually used other platforms besides RISC OS for editing text/writing software and had developed muscle memory for more conventional keypresses.

Actually, the main point here is that StrongED’s new “default” behaviour interacts with the Global Clipboard, so you can cut text from another application and paste it into your text document using the same standard keypresses as most other applications (Zap still holds out with some weird shortcuts, for example).

If the change has occurred is there a way to revert it back to its old behaviour?

Shift-Ctrl-C and Shift-Ctrl-V do the old behaviours, IIRC. I suspect that they don’t interact with the Global Clipboard, however.

Ah I see. By chance I did come across changes to Style Guide in my Risc-os browsing last night and noticed the copy and paste been incorporated into a newer version. I was on some very old sites last night. It did slightly cross my mind that this may be why there was a change in StrongED but I wrongly assumed that the style guide would use the Acorn standard. Which I also assumed would be the StrongED way. Did Acorn have a standard copy and paste shortcut of their own? I also read recently or vaguely recall R Murray saying the standard came from the BBC and I think he did some research and found a manual on View and it appeared as though Acorn adopted that. If various applications are doing their own shortcuts I guess it made it hard for Acorn to recommend their own standard.

It’s great that I have the old shortcuts but done slightly differently so thanks for that.

It did slightly cross my mind that this may be why there was a change in StrongED but I wrongly assumed that the style guide would use the Acorn standard.

The Acorn Style Guide from 1993 stated that “the cut and paste method of copying and moving objects should be adopted for new applications as this is taking over from alternative methods,”¹ then went on to discuss how a clipboard works. The problem was that Acorn never updated their own “ROM Applications” to follow their guide.

The Global Clipboard came in with a later Application Note, but it built on what was in the Style Guide.

Edit: It wasn’t the only place that the original Style Guide was prescient. It also expected applications to use (what was known at the time as) “Windows Style” Backspace and Delete, too.

¹ Page 77.

It’s great that I have the old shortcuts but done slightly differently so thanks for that.

Actually the shortcuts for copy block (etc) and clipboard support have been switched over. Mainly for the reasons that Steve has already pointed out.

 +--------------------+------+------+
 | action             | old  | new  |
 |--------------------|------|------|
 | copy block         | c-C  | cs-C |
 | move block         | c-V  | cs-V |
 | delete block       | c-X  | cs-X |
 | clear block        | c-Z  | cs-Z |
 |                    |      |      |
 | copy to clipboard  | cs-C | c-C  |
 | paste clipboard    | cs-V | c-V  |
 | cut to clipboard   | cs-X | c-X  |
 | purge clipboard    | cs-Z | c-Z  |
 +--------------------+------+------+

This was a tough decision as some users wanted to retain the old shortcuts whereas others want the new ones. But when clipboard support in the Wimp came about, and suppliers of RISC OS distributions requested it, I decided that it was time to finally make the switch.

If you really want the old shortcuts then you can get them back by simply editing the BaseMode ModeFile. If you don’t know how, just let me know and I’ll tell you how to do it.

3. Really annoyed anyone who actually used other platforms besides RISC OS for editing text/writing software and had developed muscle memory for more conventional keypresses.

Most of Sunday I was toggling between a Windows PC and RISC OS, scraping text, copy + paste, try something out on Windows, collect the log, copy + paste, repeat until it works…

The value of using Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V via the global clipboard is great. As Steve says, it’s just a shame Acorn contradicted themselves with Edit having said to do it the other way in the Style Guide.

I also switch between StrongED and Notepad++, and as I’m using the older version of StrongED regularly I get confused. I also get confused and keep pressing F3 to save in Notepad, which does something rather messy instead (I think it’s a find and replace). Fortunately ctrl-Z usually recovers – if I notice soon enough before doing more.

Hi, I’m lucky the change didn’t bother me much in getting used to it for my simple stuff. The change sounds beneficial for all reasons described. It’s interesting to hear all the history. Thanks for explanations.

I also switch between StrongED and Notepad++, and as I’m using the older version of StrongED regularly I get confused.

The keybindings can be switched around on any version of StrongED, there’s nothing stopping you from doing so if you want to.