A "don't do wrong broken shit" checkbox in Visual Studio? You wish.



  • Ok if you read this, you agree to never tell me I don't criticize Microsoft products. Agreed? Fine.

    Visual Studio has for ages had a useful "feature" where if you hit Copy or Cut with no text selected, the operation will apply to the current line instead. Which has the interesting (read: utterly broken) side-effect of deleting the clipboard. (This isn't rocket science: if there's no selection, I copied nothing, so there's no reason the clipboard should change! Duh!)

    I'm a terrible typist and flub Cut/Copy all the time (especially when trying to actually hit Paste, which is right next to Copy, and makes the losing of my clipboard even more painful and irritating.) So this bug (and I refuse to call it a "feature", even if some moron on the VS team thinks it's desirable behavior) is one of the most angering things about Visual Studio for me.

    Fortunately, Microsoft provides a "don't do wrong broken shit" checkbox in its settings:

    Great, that's a relie-- wait-- what?

    The option only applies to... to blank lines? Are you telling me, Visual Studio, that:

    1. There's no way to disable the utterly broken behavior of wiping out the clipboard when there's no selection, and, even worse:

    2. Your utterly broken behavior (with that checkbox turned on, which is the default) is to wipe out the clipboard even when BOTH the selection AND the line the insertion point is on are blank?

    So it's not even a "don't do broken shit" checkbox, it's a "make the broken shit only very slightly less broken" checkbox.


  • FoxDev

    *recalls many occasions when I cut/copied complete lines from one place to another*

    OK, granted, I did that in nano, not VS, but the fact is I still cut/copied entire lines without using a selection. So you can rant about it all you like; it's a feature, and people use it.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    So it's not even a "don't do broken shit" checkbox, it's a "make the broken shit only very slightly less broken" checkbox.

    It's the "annoy the shit out of me no matter what" option. *grumble* (the oldest VS I have is 2008 - and it's the same there)



  • @RaceProUK said:

    recalls many occasions when I cut/copied complete lines from one place to another

    OK, granted, I did that in nano


    Given that it’s the only way to cut/copy things in nano, that’s hardly surprising.



  • @RaceProUK said:

    OK, granted, I did that in nano, not VS, but the fact is I still cut/copied entire lines without using a selection. So you can rant about it all you like; it's a feature, and people use it.

    Fine; but then it should be a different key from Control-C or Control-X. Those keys have a VERY SPECIFIC, WELL-ESTABLISHED MEANING.



  • i had the same problem.
    this little thing solved it.

    (history in your clipboard!)
    and now i can't live without it.


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said:

    Fine; but then it should be a different key from Control-C or Control-X. Those keys have a VERY SPECIFIC, WELL-ESTABLISHED MEANING.

    ^X means Cut. And you cut a line.
    ^C means Copy. And you copy a line.

    Of course, now you'll apply blakeylogic and find some convoluted and ranty way to tell me I'm wrong…



  • @RaceProUK said:

    ^X means Cut. And you cut a line.

    You Cut a selection. Not a line. There is no application (other than Visual Studio) in which Cut will do anything with no selection. Ditto that with Copy.

    The shortcut for Copy is C. The shortcut for Paste is V. If you change Copy to wipe out the clipboard when there's no selection, you've guaranteed that a simple flub from V to C is going to wipe-out user data. Wiping-out user data is a bad thing. That's why this is a bug.

    When Apple invented all this shit (including the keyboard shortcuts) back in the early-mid-80s, they had VERY GOOD REASONS for all of the decisions they made. Nothing was an accident. Including the decision to do nothing if the user hits Copy with no selection.


  • Banned

    @blakeyrat said:

    Those keys have a VERY SPECIFIC, WELL-ESTABLISHED MEANING.

    Agreed. Ctrl+C should terminate the application!

    Boomzilla liked this post before this edit can be marked as edit.



  • Besides, if you're using anything OTHER THAN Visual Studio, there's a completely different accelerator for cutting or copying lines: Ctrl + K.

    (In VS, that's the "chord key" -- or, in FOSStarded editors, the "mode key" -- for all the formatting, bookmarking, and refactoring functions.)


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @blakeyrat said:

    You Cut a selection. Not a line. There is no application (other than Visual Studio) in which Cut will do anything with no selection. Ditto that with Copy.

    Yeah, it's usually some other command that does that. Like ctrl+K.

    This is why I stay away from shit products like Visual Studio.

    EDIT: Hanzo'd



  • I prefer the Ctrl+Insert, Shift+Insert and Shift+Delete shortcuts when editing text.
    Also, doesn't VS have a "clipboard ring" feature? It's been a while since I used it.


  • BINNED

    Sublime Text does it, and I actually use that a lot. It also has CtrlShiftK for "delete line" (doesn't change the clipboard).

    Of course, you can rebind / remove that in Sublime (even though configuring Sublime is retardedly too obtuse). The setting to turn this off, but just for empty lines, really makes no sense to me. Either have it toggleable or not, damn it!



  • @fatbull said:

    I prefer the Ctrl+Insert, Shift+Insert and Shift+Delete shortcuts when editing text.
    Also, doesn't VS have a "clipboard ring" feature? It's been a while since I used it.

    Man, you're a dinosaur! You prefer IBM's CUA copy/paste/cut shortcuts? (OK, I'm a dinosaur, too, and I like them as well...)


  • kills Dumbledore

    @blakeyrat said:

    There is no application (other than Visual Studio) in which Cut will do anything with no selection

    SSMS has the same stupid behaviour. I keep doing it when I cut and paste, because my muscle memory is to move my finger right one key. It's pissed me off for years


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said:

    That's why this is a bug.

    You're aware that MS doesn't add a feature unless it's worth adding, right? And that they have an entire process aimed specifically at weeding out the useless and the banal, and that this feature passed all those tests?

    Of course, if you're so utterly convinced that this feature MS spent fuck-knows how much time evaluating, implementing, and testing is a bug, then why not report it to them? They have an entire website just for users to report bugs, after all.

    And I know exactly what they'll do: they'll close the issue because the feature works as designed.



  • @fatbull said:

    Also, doesn't VS have a "clipboard ring" feature? It's been a while since I used it.

    It does, but that's not the point. The bug here is clearing the clipboard in the first place. Having access to older clipboard states is a handy feature, but it's not a "fix".



  • @Jaloopa said:

    SSMS has the same stupid behaviour.

    SSMS is Visual Studio. Just well-decorated. At least the last few versions have been.


  • Java Dev

    @Gaska said:

    Agreed. Ctrl+C should terminate the application!

    QFT, because a like is not enough.



  • @RaceProUK said:

    You're aware that MS doesn't add a feature unless it's worth adding, right?

    That is not even close to true.

    @RaceProUK said:

    And that they have an entire process aimed specifically at weeding out the useless and the banal, and that this feature passed all those tests?

    Windows definitely does. Office almost certainly does.

    Visual Studio? You need a cite. I don't buy it.

    @RaceProUK said:

    And I know exactly what they'll do: they'll close the issue because the feature works as designed.

    That doesn't make it not-a-bug, that just shifts the point at which the bug occurred.



  • So, is Visual Studio better or worse than the open source IDEs?

    *runs*


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said:

    That is not even close to true.

    Who am I going to believe more, hm? A hugely successful multi-national corporation with more money than some small countries and a mountain of usability research, or a random angry bloke on the Internet with a bee in his bonnet and a stick up his arse?
    @blakeyrat said:
    Visual Studio? You need a cite. I don't buy it.

    Is Eric Lippert, who worked on the C# toolchain for many years, and was one of the main people working on Roslyn, good enough?
    @blakeyrat said:
    That doesn't make it not-a-bug, that just shifts the point at which the bug occurred.

    It's not clearing the clipboard; it's replacing the contents with the line the insertion point is on. So this
    @blakeyrat said:
    The bug here is clearing the clipboard in the first place.

    is complete horseshit.



  • @RaceProUK said:

    Who am I going to believe more, hm? A hugely successful multi-national corporation with more money than some small countries and a mountain of usability research, or a random angry bloke on the Internet with a bee in his bonnet and a stick up his arse?

    Each team in Microsoft is nearly 100% siloed. I believe your claim for Windows and Office. I don't believe it for Visual Studio. Maybe I'm wrong.

    @RaceProUK said:

    Is Eric Lippert, who worked on the C# toolchain for many years, and was one of the main people working on Roslyn, good enough?

    If you actually have a cite, then yes.

    @RaceProUK said:

    It's not clearing the clipboard; it's replacing the contents with the line the insertion point is on.

    I can't even combat this level of pedantic dickweedery.

    @RaceProUK said:

    is complete horseshit.

    is not complete sentence!


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said:

    If you actually have a cite, then yes.

    Not Lippert, but another C# guy, Eric Gunnerson.
    @blakeyrat said:
    I can't even combat this level of pedantic dickweedery.

    You could flag it… oh, wait, gamification. Forgot you were allergic to it.
    @blakeyrat said:
    is not complete sentence!

    is correct!



  • @RaceProUK said:

    Not Lippert, but another C# guy, Eric Gunnerson.

    The compiler team is not the Visual Studio team.

    The point out something that's extraordinarily obvious, but you were apparently too fucking rock-stupid to notice.


  • I survived the hour long Uno hand

    @Onyx said:

    Sublime Text does it

    and it drives me fucking nuts. Use case: I selected something and cut it, and I go to Sublime to paste it, but I accidentally fatfinger the V and type another C instead. Now my old selection is fucking gone. DNW


  • FoxDev

    @blakeyrat said:

    The compiler team is not the Visual Studio team.

    😱


    Seriously, are you really that desperate to eke out even the tiniest sliver of victory? Is it so hard to believe that the system used by the Windows team, the Office team, and the C# team is also used by the VS team?



  • @RaceProUK said:

    Is it so hard to believe that the system used by the Windows team, the Office team, and the C# team is also used by the VS team?

    Without actual evidence, I don't believe anything.



  • +1 for Apple snobbery. Using Ctrl instead of Alt is going to cripple generations of computer users with arthritic pinkies. Playing the guitar is easier than stretching for a new tab (ctrl-t).

    I do Linux, and I still make Alt do what Ctrl does by default. And I make caps into esc.


  • BINNED

    @Yamikuronue said:

    and it drives me fucking nuts. Use case: I selected something and cut it, and I go to Sublime to paste it, but I accidentally fatfinger the V and type another C instead. Now my old selection is fucking gone. DNW

    YPMV

    In any case: Preferences → Settings - Default.



  • @Onyx said:

    Sublime Text does it,

    Wow, somehow that's never come up for me. Of course I use it maybe 1/20th of the time I use Visual Studio.

    This is the problem in releasing a broken product-- if it becomes popular, other people start copying the broken behavior, thinking, "well product A is popular, maybe because it does broken shit?"



  • Thanks.

    Now if only Visual Studio added this option, it would be less broken.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    I'm a terrible typist

    Maybe you should use the OSK instead, since you love GUIs so much.


  • ♿ (Parody)

    @FrostCat said:

    OSK

    I have no idea what that means, but all I can think of is, "OshKosh, b'gosh!"


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @blakeyrat said:

    Windows definitely does. Office almost certainly does.

    Visual Studio? You need a cite. I don't buy it.

    You are free to argue that for some reason, the VS team collects that data and then throws it away unused.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Control-C ... ha[s] a VERY SPECIFIC, WELL-ESTABLISHED MEANING.

    I don't see why sending signal 2 would copy text...



  • @blakeyrat said:

    Visual Studio has for ages had a useful "feature" where if you hit Copy or Cut with no text selected, the operation will apply to the current line instead. Which has the interesting (read: utterly broken) side-effect of deleting the clipboard. (This isn't rocket science: if there's no selection, I copied nothing, so there's no reason the clipboard should change! Duh!)

    What do you mean by deleting the clipboard? Are you complaining that the copy command copies something to the clipboard in the first slot?

    Or are you complaining that whatever was at the top of the clipboard is now in the second slot? Because you can still get to that with ctrl+shift+v.

    For the record I like whole line cut/copy and use it constantly. I wish more programs would do that.



  • @RaceProUK said:

    OK, granted, I did that in nano, not VS, but the fact is I still cut/copied entire lines without using a selection. So you can rant about it all you like; it's a feature, and people use it.

    Home, Shift, Down, C-x. There.

    I've never actually realized that's what VS does, and I've been using it for a while now. So maybe it's not as annoying in general as @blakeyrat implies, but that is quite silly.

    Now, if I could only get my Visual Studio to talk to IIS properly and not have me digging out temp files every time I change a branch...

    @blakeyrat said:

    When Apple invented all this shit (including the keyboard shortcuts) back in the early-mid-80s

    So you only stop bashing Microsoft to praise pre-Mac OS X Apple. Gotcha.

    @boomzilla said:

    This is why I stay away from shit products like Visual Studio.

    True to that. Nothing beats edlin when it comes to programming.

    @RaceProUK said:

    Who am I going to believe more, hm? A hugely successful multi-national corporation with more money than some small countries and a mountain of usability research, or a random angry bloke on the Internet with a bee in his bonnet and a stick up his arse?

    You obviously don't frequent Slashdot, do ya...



  • @RaceProUK said:

    Not Lippert, but another C# guy, Eric Gunnerson.

    This quote doesn't support your argument at all.

    First, it's about language design (C#), not even compiler design. It doesn't refer to software design practices.

    Second, it doesn't really talk about usability all that much. He says that when designing C#, they only added features when they felt they had a powerful net positive. Basically, every new feature started with -100 points and had to add at least "100 points" to the language (however those points are counted). And that despite this, yes, they took features out when they decided that it wasn't as positive as they thought.

    Finally, the entire justification for this approach doesn't support your theory. They were so careful with new features because they knew that once you add a feature to a language, it's there pretty much forever: No matter how useless a feature seems, someone will build a critical piece of infrastructure that depends on it and has to be supported. Sometimes they'll do that around bugs.

    This is not true of the interface for a program that has yearly releases, patches and services packs.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @RaceProUK said:

    o you can rant about it all you like; it's a feature, and people use it.

    I don't use VS but it sounds annoying. This should have an option to disable it because I wouldn't want to use it. I agree with @blakeyrat here.



  • Like Google apparently does. Right?


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    @Captain said:

    Like Google apparently does. Right?

    I CBA to decide whether to take that seriously or else what category of joke I should go for so I'm not going to bother to reply.



  • @blakeyrat said:

    if there's no selection, I copied nothing, so there's no reason the clipboard should change!

    Just like how when you assign a null string to a variable, it doesn't change but keeps its previous value, right?

    Yes, I'm probably trolling.



  • Ctrl-X, Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V go further back than that, at least mid 1970's and before the introduction of the Apple IIe. Not able to find an authoritive reference for the actual origin, but 99% sure it was not Apple.



  • It was Xerox, for the SmallTalk environment. Apple stole it and fixed it. The others just stole it. Actually, the folklore is that Microsoft stole it from Apple, when they wrote Excel for Mac OS and then ported it to Windows.


  • FoxDev

    @Maciejasjmj said:

    You obviously don't frequent Slashdot, do ya...

    Used to; don't anymore. Not since the whole 'FUCK BETA' clusterfuck that completely obliterated all possibility of debate*. That, and being labelled a racist for agreeing with the AA about car insurance quotes w.r.t. gender.
    *Arguing pointlessly because everyone's a fucking idiot that doesn't know when to stop ☺

    @Kian said:

    This quote doesn't support your argument at all.

    Fair's fair; I retract that point.

    @loopback0 said:

    I don't use VS but it sounds annoying. This should have an option to disable it because I wouldn't want to use it.

    Disable it completely? Fair enough; it's a good idea. But that doesn't change the fact that what blakey's seeing isn't a bug; it's just a feature that doesn't work the way he thinks it should work.


  • Discourse touched me in a no-no place

    Cool but a lot if his point was you can't turn it off. Annoying shit is irrelevant if you can disable it.

    Ignoring his usual charming delivery method, it sounds like he has a point.



  • There are other applications that cut & copy without a selection. See: every image editor.


  • BINNED

    @superjer said:

    There are other applications that cut & copy without a selection. See: every image editor.

    And then there's Linux where just selecting something sticks it into an additional clipboard you can paste from using middle click (I buttume there's a keyboard shortcut too but I never looked for it).


  • FoxDev

    And let's not forget applications that don't use ^X and ^C for cut/copy. Like just about every command line, that uses ^C to kill a foreground task. Or nano that uses ^X for Quit.

    And don't even start on Emacs…


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