[GNC] Edit Cut and Copy greyed out

Geert Janssens geert.gnucash at kobaltwit.be
Sun Dec 15 10:08:20 EST 2019


Op zondag 15 december 2019 15:29:56 CET schreef Tony Vanson:
> A bit further to my mystery - the first time I open a register, and the
> blank line on the bottom, with just the current date, is highlighted by
> default, *Cut *and *Copy *are active and I can in fact use them, however if
> I highlight a line with transactions, *Cut *and *Copy *are greyed out. In
> all instances *Paste *is available? Any ideas welcome.
> Cheers
> 
Ok, so I have opened gnucash to verify what you are describing.

It does exactly what you say and in fact that is also what it is expected to 
do by design.

Here's the explanation: the "Copy" and "Cut" menu items serve to copy or cut 
simple bits of text, not full transactions or splits. There are other commands 
for copying complete splits and transactions as someone else suggested earlier 
in this thread.

When you open a register gnucash will highlight the date of the blank 
transaction (that is, it's selected). With some text being selected, the edit 
menu will offer you two commands to copy or cut this text.

When you then click somewhere in any other field, that field's content won't 
be selected, but the cursor will simply be set to where you clicked. As 
there's not text selection, there's nothing to copy or cut, so the two menu 
items are disabled.

I believe some of the early gnucash versions in the 3 series behaved slightly 
differently. A click in any field would first select the full contents of that 
field. Only a second click in the field would unselect the contents and insert 
the cursor on the click. This was removed as it was more frequently annoying 
than helpful. It's generally more common to want to set the cursor where you 
click than to want to select the whole field on a click.

Hopefully this explains the mystery for you.

Regards,

Geert




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