Copy/Paste between VM with only 2 keys?

User Support General
1

I’m using copy/past function between qubes a lot and I was wondering if there any way to speed up the process instead of pressing 4 different combinations just to get text from one place to another (Ctrl+C > Ctrl+Shift+C > Ctrl+Shift+V > Ctrl+V).
Would it be possible to program single key for copy which would perform Ctrl+C > Ctrl+Shift+C and single key for paste Ctrl+Shift+V > Ctrl+V?
I don’t mind having separate standalone keypad or small usb keys like 3-4 keys you can get from Amazon.

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2

I can not state to have a final solution for you, but I would encourage you to checkout input-remapper which is availablke for fedora 41 / dom0.

You can add macros to keys which is basically what you want.

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3

I copy between qubes a lot too and I’ve set up my forward and backward buttons on my mouse to Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V respectively.

So to copy and paste between qubes I press,

  • Forward mouse button, to copy text from origin qube
  • Shift + Forward mouse button, to copy text to global clipboard
  • Shift + Backward mouse button, to paste text from global clipboard
  • Backward mouse button, to paste text to destination qube

It looks long but it takes under 3sec to copy text between qubes.

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4

Good idea. My mouse does not have any additional buttons, but I probably could get one like that.
However it still 4 step action. Since you have extra buttons anyway, forward and backward in this case, would you be able to set up first 2 actions on forward and last two actions on backward? So you only press them once each, without any additional actions keys, such as Shift.

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5

Yes, you can certainly do that. Set 3-key combination to the forward/backwards buttons of the mouse, but I use them for copying within the same qube too, so it’s more convenient for me.

I suggest getting a Logitech mouse and use logid package in sys-usb to communicate with it and configure the buttons.

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6

If you want to use the keyboard, use xdotool - create two simple scripts
and bind them to shortcuts. Script like this:

ID=`xdotool getwindowfocus`

QUBE=$(xprop _QUBES_VMNAME -id $ID|cut -f2 -d\" )

if [[ "$QUBE" == "_QUBES_VMNAME:  not found." ]]; then
  exit
else
  xdotool  getactivewindow key --clearmodifiers --delay 50 ctrl+c ctrl+shift+c
fi
I never presume to speak for the Qubes team. When I comment in the Forum I speak for myself.
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