(Bug with POC workaround) use pbcopy on MacOS for better clipboard manager support #19
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ilyagr
commented
May 25, 2025
| proc set_clipboard {text} { | ||
| # Using `pbcopy` works around | ||
| # https://core.tcl-lang.org/tk/tktview/e94c8bc845b4d5a658cd5421ef23ef2484560fa8 | ||
| # `clipboard append` trims the last newline, so we do too. |
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I'm confused about this. When I try clipboard append "a\n", the \n goes to the clipboard. However, experimentally, string trimright below seems necessary for the result of gitk's copies to the clipboard with pbcopy to be the same as the results from before this commit. Perhaps the behavior of clipboard append is more confusing than I thought, intentionally or because of a bug.
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Thanks. It would be great if you could resolve the confusing |
On Mac OS, current versions of Tk 9 or Tk 8 `clipboard append` do not interact properly with clipboard managers. This makes `gitk` interact badly with them as well. See [1] for an example of how this affects `gitk` and [2] for a ticket describing the problem with Tk. This commit works around the problem by having `gitk` use the `pbcopy` CLI to copy to the clipboard instead of Tk's `clipboard append`, as long as we are on Mac OS and `pbcopy` is available. AFAIK, `pbcopy` is always installed with Mac OS. [1]: p0deje/Maccy#1100 [2]: https://core.tcl-lang.org/tk/tktview/e94c8bc845b4d5a658cd5421ef23ef2484560fa8
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This could be considered as a bug report with a proof of concept for a workaround.
TLDR: on Mac OS, gitk's "copy commit reference" and other clipboard operations are not detected properly by clipboard managers due to a Tk bug. The first copy from gitk is often detected, but any further ones are not.
See the links below for more details.
The POC fix is simply to shell out to Mac OS's
pbcopyinstead of using Tk'sclipboard appendon Mac OS. If the Tk bug could be fixed, that would probably be better.I am not sure whether this is ready to merge. In particular, I am not familiar with Tcl/Tk conventions and I have only tested this on Tk 8.6.16.
On Mac OS, current versions of Tk 9 or Tk 8
clipboard appenddo not interact properly with clipboard managers. This makesgitkinteract badly with them as well. See 1 for an example of how this affectsgitkand 2 for a ticket describing the problem with Tk.This commit works around the problem by having
gitkuse thepbcopyCLI to copy to the clipboard instead of Tk'sclipboard append, as long as we are on Mac OS andpbcopyis available. AFAIK,pbcopyis always installed with Mac OS.1: p0deje/Maccy#1100
2: https://core.tcl-lang.org/tk/tktview/e94c8bc845b4d5a658cd5421ef23ef2484560fa8