Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Commenting out multiple lines in vim

[Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk>]

On 14 Feb 2009, at 05:03, daid kahl wrote:
>>>
>>> Is there any way to access the vim buffers from other than vi?   
>>> Using Konsole, if I want to copy something from vim I have to  
>>> highlight with the mouse and right click, which is annoying.  I  
>>> really just want a better way to copy from Konsole that doesn't  
>>> involve right click.  At least shift+insert works for pasting from  
>>> elsewhere...
>>>
>> Do you want to copy without using right-click (i.e. copy upon mouse  
>> select) or copy without using the mouse at all? I assume the  
>> latter, but that was not my initial reaction when I read "I really  
>> just want a better way ... that doesn't involve right click".
>
> Haha, either one.  I guess ideally it would be neat to be able to  
> copy from Konsole without using the mouse at all, but I'd settle for  
> mouse highlight and keystroke.  Since I use a laptop with a  
> touchpad, the highlighting isn't a huge hand motion away from the  
> keyboard.  Though, strtictly speaking, this thread is on vim, and I  
> like to copy from vim more than Konsole anyway (except for like  
> compile bugs, which I guess I could access through vim and the log  
> files).

I can certainly answer copying using mouse but without needing to click.

I started to write this before I realised the other possibility:

    IMO terminal emulators should copy on selection, as was the  
traditional
    X11 style. This is clearly undesirable behaviour in most any other
    application - in a word-processor or email program you may want to
    highlight a selection of text which you want to paste over, and
    it's no use trying that when doing so overwrites the clipboard -
    but that doesn't ever apply to terminal applications.

    Surely Konsole should offer a copy-upon-selection option?

I then realised that it was daft to ask this question without Googling  
it and quickly found this thread:
   http://forums.whirlpool.net.au/forum-replies-archive.cfm/718984.html

The last post gives the answer, I think.

It must surely be possible to access the clipboard API at the command  
line & create a vim command that passes the highlighted text to it,  
but I have no idea how.

Stroller.