XMonad.Util.XSelection

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 <http://gorgias.mine.nu/repos/xmonad-utils>

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")

Future improvements for XSelection:

• More elaborate functionality: Emacs' registers are nice; if you don't know what they are, see http://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/emacs/Registers.html#Registers

getSelection :: MonadIO m => m String

Returns a String corresponding to the current mouse selection in X; if there is none, an empty string is returned.

WARNING: this function is fundamentally implemented incorrectly and may, among other possible failure modes, deadlock or crash. For details, see http://code.google.com/p/xmonad/issues/detail?id=573. (These errors are generally very rare in practice, but still exist.)

promptSelection :: String -> X ()

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.

safePromptSelection :: String -> X ()

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.

transformPromptSelection :: (String -> String) -> String -> X ()

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 ++""".

transformSafePromptSelection :: (String -> String) -> String -> X ()

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 ++""".