{-# LANGUAGE CPP #-} {- | Module : XMonad.Util.XSelection Copyright : (C) 2007 Andrea Rossato, Matthew Sackman License : BSD3 Maintainer : Gwern Branwen Stability : unstable Portability : unportable A module for accessing and manipulating X Window's mouse selection (the buffer used in copy and pasting). 'getSelection' is an adaptation of Hxsel.hs and Hxput.hs from the XMonad-utils, available: > $ darcs get -} module XMonad.Util.XSelection ( -- * Usage -- $usage getSelection, promptSelection, safePromptSelection, transformPromptSelection, transformSafePromptSelection) where import Control.Exception.Extensible as E (catch,SomeException(..)) import Control.Monad (liftM, join) import Data.Maybe (fromMaybe) import XMonad import XMonad.Util.Run (safeSpawn, unsafeSpawn) import Codec.Binary.UTF8.String (decode) {- $usage Add @import XMonad.Util.XSelection@ to the top of Config.hs Then make use of getSelection or promptSelection as needed; if one wanted to run Firefox with the selection as an argument (perhaps the selection string is an URL you just highlighted), then one could add to the xmonad.hs a line like thus: > , ((modm .|. shiftMask, xK_b), promptSelection "firefox") There are a number of known problems with XSelection: * Unicode handling is busted. But it's still better than calling 'chr' to translate to ASCII, at least. As near as I can tell, the mangling happens when the String is outputted somewhere, such as via promptSelection's passing through the shell, or GHCi printing to the terminal. utf-string has IO functions which can fix this, though I do not know have to use them here. It's a complex issue; see and . * Needs more elaborate functionality: Emacs' registers are nice; if you don't know what they are, see -} -- | Returns a String corresponding to the current mouse selection in X; if there is none, an empty string is returned. Note that this is -- really only reliable for ASCII text and currently escapes or otherwise mangles more complex UTF-8 characters. getSelection :: MonadIO m => m String getSelection = io $ do dpy <- openDisplay "" let dflt = defaultScreen dpy rootw <- rootWindow dpy dflt win <- createSimpleWindow dpy rootw 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 p <- internAtom dpy "PRIMARY" True ty <- E.catch (E.catch (internAtom dpy "UTF8_STRING" False) (\(E.SomeException _) -> internAtom dpy "COMPOUND_TEXT" False)) (\(E.SomeException _) -> internAtom dpy "sTring" False) clp <- internAtom dpy "BLITZ_SEL_STRING" False xConvertSelection dpy p ty clp win currentTime allocaXEvent $ \e -> do nextEvent dpy e ev <- getEvent e if ev_event_type ev == selectionNotify then do res <- getWindowProperty8 dpy clp win return $ decode . map fromIntegral . fromMaybe [] $ res else destroyWindow dpy win >> return "" {- | A wrapper around 'getSelection'. Makes it convenient to run a program with the current selection as an argument. This is convenient for handling URLs, in particular. For example, in your Config.hs you could bind a key to @promptSelection \"firefox\"@; this would allow you to highlight a URL string and then immediately open it up in Firefox. 'promptSelection' passes strings through the system shell, \/bin\/sh; if you do not wish your selected text to be interpreted or mangled by the shell, use 'safePromptSelection'. safePromptSelection will bypass the shell using 'safeSpawn' from "XMonad.Util.Run"; see its documentation for more details on the advantages and disadvantages of using safeSpawn. -} promptSelection, safePromptSelection, unsafePromptSelection :: String -> X () promptSelection = unsafePromptSelection safePromptSelection app = join $ io $ liftM (safeSpawn app . return) getSelection unsafePromptSelection app = join $ io $ liftM unsafeSpawn $ fmap (\x -> app ++ " " ++ x) getSelection {- | A wrapper around 'promptSelection' and its safe variant. They take two parameters, the first is a function that transforms strings, and the second is the application to run. The transformer essentially transforms the selection in X. One example is to wrap code, such as a command line action copied out of the browser to be run as @"sudo" ++ cmd@ or @"su - -c \""++ cmd ++"\""@. -} transformPromptSelection, transformSafePromptSelection :: (String -> String) -> String -> X () transformPromptSelection f app = join $ io $ liftM (safeSpawn app . return) (fmap f getSelection) transformSafePromptSelection f app = join $ io $ liftM unsafeSpawn $ fmap (\x -> app ++ " " ++ x) (fmap f getSelection)