Volume 6A: Motif Programming Manual

it in another window is known as a paste operation. In some cases, after the data is pasted from the clipboard, the

original window deletes the data it copied, which is classified as a cut operation. The clipboard uses what is

commonly referred to as the cut and paste model.

The low−level implementation of the clipboard mechanism uses the X Toolkit selection mechanism. This model has

additional properties that provide for more detailed communication between the clients involved. For example, cutting

text from a Text widget and placing it in another widget involves more communication between the widgets than that

of the clipboard copy and retrieval mechanism. When the text that was selected in the first widget is pasted in the

other, the first widget may be notified to delete the selected text. This type of communication can be handled either

automatically by the Text widgets or through low−level X calls where the corresponding windows of the widgets send

real events called client messages to one another.

18.4.1 Clipboard Functions With Text Widgets

In most cases, you should not need to access the clipboard functions to perform simple text copy and retrieval (cut and

paste) for Text widgets. If you need to access the clipboard above and beyond the normal selection mechanisms

provided by the Text widgets, there are a number of convenience routines that deal with selections automatically. We

present a brief overview of these functions here; see Chapter 14, Text Widgets, for detailed information. ...