# gitk's copy pasteboard doesn't persist after it quits

3 messages from 2007-11-22 to 2007-11-22. Participants: Jonathan del Strother, Shawn O. Pearce, Jean-François Veillette.
Thread: https://gitlist.dev/t/10976

## Jonathan del Strother, 2007-11-22 11:44

Subject: gitk's copy pasteboard doesn't persist after it quits
Message-ID: <DFBFC631-01BF-4D2D-BCF3-3FC376479CB2@steelskies.com>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/DFBFC631-01BF-4D2D-BCF3-3FC376479CB2%40steelskies.com

```
On OS X, if I load gitk, copy a sha1, then quit, the sha1 isn't put  
into the system-wide pasteboard.  It's definitely copied - I can paste  
it back into the sha1 field - but it seems to be some sort of local  
pasteboard that's specific to gitk

If I switch to another app, the sha1 is stored in the pasteboard  
correctly, and I can then quit gitk and still have it available.  I'm  
guessing that gitk (or Tcl/Tk) is syncing with the system-wide  
pasteboard on focus change, but not on quit.

I'm using the version of gitk in 388afe7881b, and Tcl 8.4.7


Any suggestions on fixing / working around this?

Jon

```

## Shawn O. Pearce, 2007-11-22 21:01

Subject: Re: gitk's copy pasteboard doesn't persist after it quits
Message-ID: <20071122210105.GY14735@spearce.org>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/20071122210105.GY14735%40spearce.org
In-Reply-To: <DFBFC631-01BF-4D2D-BCF3-3FC376479CB2@steelskies.com>

```
Jonathan del Strother <maillist@steelskies.com> wrote:
> On OS X, if I load gitk, copy a sha1, then quit, the sha1 isn't put  
> into the system-wide pasteboard.  It's definitely copied - I can paste  
> it back into the sha1 field - but it seems to be some sort of local  
> pasteboard that's specific to gitk
> 
> If I switch to another app, the sha1 is stored in the pasteboard  
> correctly, and I can then quit gitk and still have it available.  I'm  
> guessing that gitk (or Tcl/Tk) is syncing with the system-wide  
> pasteboard on focus change, but not on quit.

I've seen this not just on Mac OS X but also on Windows.  It seems
like Tk wipes the clipboard clean on exit, so I've just learned to
not exit a Tk application until I'm done with the clipboard...

-- 
Shawn.

```

## Jean-François Veillette, 2007-11-22 21:29

Subject: Re: gitk's copy pasteboard doesn't persist after it quits
Message-ID: <2F4229F3-C4BE-4BC2-8F2D-90519D25944C@yahoo.ca>
URL: https://gitlist.dev/e/2F4229F3-C4BE-4BC2-8F2D-90519D25944C%40yahoo.ca
In-Reply-To: <20071122210105.GY14735@spearce.org>

```

Le 07-11-22 à 16:01, Shawn O. Pearce a écrit :

> Jonathan del Strother <maillist@steelskies.com> wrote:
>> On OS X, if I load gitk, copy a sha1, then quit, the sha1 isn't put
>> into the system-wide pasteboard.  It's definitely copied - I can  
>> paste
>> it back into the sha1 field - but it seems to be some sort of local
>> pasteboard that's specific to gitk

I don't know the specific of Tcl/Tk on OSX, but for Cocoa apps you  
can choose how you want it pasteboard to  behave.  Imagine you copy a  
1 gig video object, should you have another copy of it in the 'shared  
space' ? no, that's why you can decide that you make it available on  
demand only (if someone ask to paste it the system will ask your app  
for the full content).  But if you (as an application) have put  
something in the pasteboard 'on-demand-only', then when you quit, you  
should store the real value in there, nut just a pointer to the  
values.  I'm guessing the TclTk implementation doen't answer that  
kind of notification from the system and quit without filling the  
real pasteboard content.

- jfv

```
