| .\" |
| .\" selection.1 - the cut and paste utility for Linux virtual consoles |
| .\" |
| .\" Modified by faith@cs.unc.edu |
| .\" |
| .TH SELECTION 1 "20 November 1993" "Linux 0.99" "Linux Programmer's Manual" |
| .SH NAME |
| selection - the cut and paste utility for Linux virtual consoles |
| .SH SYNTAX |
| \fBselection [-a accel] [-b baud-rate] [-c l|m|r] [-d delta] [-m mouse-device] [-p l|m|r] [-s sample-rate] [-t mouse-type]\fR |
| .SH DESCRIPTION |
| \fBselection\fR is a utility that allows characters to be selected from the |
| current Linux virtual console using the mouse and pasted into the current |
| console. \fBselection\fR is normally invoked at boot time from /etc/rc.local, |
| and runs as a background process. |
| .SH OPTIONS |
| .IP \fB\-a\fP\fIaccel\fP |
| movements of more than \fIdelta\fP pixels are multiplied by \fIaccel\fP (default 2) |
| .IP \fB\-b\fP\fIbaud-rate\fP |
| set the baud rate of the mouse (default 1200 baud) |
| .IP \fB\-c\fP\fIl|m|r\fP |
| set the copy button to be the left, middle or right button (default left) |
| .IP \fB\-d\fP\fIdelta\fP |
| movements of more than \fIdelta\fP pixels are multiplied by \fIaccel\fP |
| (default 25) |
| .IP \fB\-m\fP\fImouse-device\fP |
| specify the mouse device (default /dev/mouse) |
| .IP \fB\-p\fP\fIl|m|r\fP |
| set the paste button to be the left, middle or right button (default right) |
| .IP \fB\-s\fP\fIsample-rate\fP |
| set the sample rate of the mouse (default 100) |
| .IP \fB\-t\fP\fImouse-type\fP |
| specify the mouse type (Microsoft = `ms', Mouse Systems Corp = `msc', |
| MM Series = `mm', Logitech = `logi', BusMouse = `bm', |
| MSC 3-bytes = `sun', PS/2 = `ps2'; default = ms) |
| .SH OPERATION |
| To invoke the selection mechanism, press and release the copy button |
| (the meaning of the buttons may be set at startup as above). A highlighted |
| block will start moving around the screen, correlated with the movement of the |
| mouse. |
| .PP |
| Move the block to the first character of the selection, then press and hold |
| down the copy button. |
| .PP |
| Drag out the selection; the selected text will be highlighted. Then release |
| the copy button. You can take the end of the selection to before the start of |
| the selection if necessary. |
| .PP |
| Double-clicking the copy button while the highlighted block is on the |
| screen selects text by word boundaries; treble-clicking selects by entire |
| lines. If the button is held down after double- or treble-clicking, multiple |
| words or lines may be selected. A word consists of a set of alphanumeric |
| characters and underscores. |
| .PP |
| If a trailing space after the contents of a line is highlighted, and if there |
| is no other text on the remainder of the line, the rest of the line will be |
| selected automatically. If a number of lines are selected, highlighted |
| trailing spaces on each line will be removed from the selection buffer. |
| .PP |
| Pressing the paste button in any virtual console pastes the |
| selected text into the read queue of the associated tty. |
| .PP |
| Any output on the virtual console holding the selection will clear the |
| highlighted selection from the screen, to maintain integrity of the display, |
| although the contents of the paste buffer will be unaffected. |
| .PP |
| The selection mechanism is disabled if the controlling virtual console is |
| placed in graphics mode, for example when running X11, and is re-enabled when |
| text mode is resumed. (But see BUGS section below.) |
| .SH FILES |
| /dev/mouse - default mouse device |
| .br |
| /dev/tty0 - current VC device |
| .SH DIAGNOSTICS |
| \fBselection\fR complains if any of the devices it requires cannot be located. |
| .SH BUGS |
| The size of the paste buffer is set at 2048 bytes by default. This may be |
| changed at compile time; consult the installation notes. |
| .PP |
| The selection mechanism doesn't work very well with graphics characters, or |
| indeed with any characters where a mapping between the typed character and |
| the displayed character is performed by the console driver. The selection |
| mechanism pastes into the input buffer the character codes as they are |
| displayed on the screen, not those originally typed in by the user. |
| .PP |
| Because of the way that the kernel bus mouse drivers work, allowing only one |
| process to have the mouse device open at once, \fBselection\fR cannot |
| co-exist with X11 using ATI XL, Logitech and Microsoft bus mice or with a |
| PS/2 mouse. The X server will not start while \fBselection\fR is running. |
| This problem is not present with serial mice. |
| .SH AUTHOR |
| .nf |
| Andrew Haylett <ajh@gec-mrc.co.uk> |
| .SH ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
| .nf |
| Lefty patches originally suggested by: |
| .ti +4 |
| Sotiris C. Vassilopoulos <scv2f@edu.Virginia.acc.honi4> |
| .br |
| Logitech patches from: |
| .ti +4 |
| Jim Winstead Jr <jwinstea@jarthur.Claremont.EDU> |
| .br |
| Command line options based on those from: |
| .ti +4 |
| Peter Macdonald <pmacdona@sanjuan> |
| .br |
| Patches for bus mouse from: |
| .br |
| .ti +4 |
| Erik Troan <ewtroan@eos.ncsu.edu> |
| .br |
| .ti +4 |
| Christoph Niemann <niemann@rubdv15.etdv.ruhr-uni-bochum.de> |
| .br |
| .ti +4 |
| Koen Gadeyne <kmg@barco.be> |
| .br |
| Patches for PS/2 mouse from: |
| .br |
| .ti +4 |
| Hans D. Fink |
| .br |
| Patches for Sun mouse from: |
| .br |
| .ti +4 |
| Michael Haardt <michael@gandalf.moria> |
| .br |
| Run-time configurable mouse buttons suggested by: |
| .br |
| .ti +4 |
| Charlie Brady <charlieb@au.oz.tpl.tplrd> |
| .br |
| Setsid patches by: |
| .bt |
| .ti +4 |
| Rick Sladkey <jrs@world.std.com> |
| .sp |
| Apologies to any contributors whose names I have omitted. |