Global clipboard improvement ideas

[user777]

Hello,

Global clipboard is very good for security but current implementation is very inconvenient. Example to copy from a web browser in one domain to a terminal in another domain.

1. Select text and press Ctrl+C. Make sure you don’t press Ctrl+Shift+C, the combination you use to copy in a terminal, this opens the web inspector. As a consequence of habit I sometimes do this.
2. Use the Win+Shift+C to copy to global clipboard.
3. Select the the terminal window. Press Win+Shift+V to paste to terminal domain.
4. Press Ctrl+Shift+V to paste in terminal. Make sure you don’t press Ctrl+C, this combination closes the active running program, this is bad if a CLI program is running and you want to paste some input. This has also happened to me a couple of times.

I personally use Win+C and Win+V for global clipboard to make things a little easier but it is still error prone. Suggestions:

1. Have the global clipboard run in parallel with the domain clipboards. Skip the step to copy to domain clipboard and allow direct copy to global clipboard by selecting text and directly use Win+C to copy to global clipboard. When you paste the global clipboard in another domain use Win+V to directly paste from global clipboard.
2. Allow pasting multiple times from global clipboard. If I need to copy from one domain to multiple domains it becomes very tedious… Achieve this by using a keepassxc style timer for global clipboard storage. After 10-15 seconds wipe the contents of global clipboard.
3. Integrate global clipboard copy/paste in dropdown menu’s. This probably isn’t technically feasible but I just thought to throw this in.
4. In the tray icon for the global clipboard add option to copy and paste to global clipboard. This is useful if you use the mouse a lot, no need to touch the keyboard, do all operations from tray icon.

Thoughts ?

[FranklyFlawless]

@user777

Thoughts ?

I agree with having #2 as a configurable option.

[otter2]

@user777

Have the global clipboard run in parallel with the domain clipboards.

You can automate this yourself with a script bound to a key

@user777

Allow pasting multiple times from global clipboard. If I need to copy from one domain to multiple domains it becomes very tedious… Achieve this by using a keepassxc style timer for global clipboard storage. After 10-15 seconds wipe the contents of global clipboard.

Sounds like a nice configuration option.

@user777

Integrate global clipboard copy/paste in dropdown menu’s. This probably isn’t technically feasible but I just thought to throw this in.

This won’t work because you either need to allow domains to grab stuff from global clipboard without asking (which is insecure) or make them ask you in a dialog every time (which I assume would topple any benefit you might expect from this)

@user777

In the tray icon for the global clipboard add option to copy and paste to global clipboard. This is useful if you use the mouse a lot, no need to touch the keyboard, do all operations from tray icon.

You may be able to do similar thing with a script and a launcher in a panel. You might even use the same scripts from point 1. This is more of a hack though.

[parulin]

I agree with the previous posts but the OP is not totally right to me:

@user777

Select text and press Ctrl+C. Make sure you don’t press Ctrl+Shift+C, the combination you use to copy in a terminal, this opens the web inspector. As a consequence of habit I sometimes do this.

This is not specific to Qubes OS. Actually, if you use the default shortcut, Ctrl+Shift+C is caught by dom0.

@user777

Press Ctrl+Shift+C to paste in terminal. Make sure you don’t press Ctrl+C, this combination closes the active running program, this is bad if a CLI program is running and you want to paste some input. This has also happened to me a couple of times.

You mean ...+V to paste? So… Not an issue?

[user777]

You are right, my example was mainly to show how convoluted the process is. Will fully edit later.