Mouse Copy and Paste
                                      by
                                 Steve Cribbs
                       Atomic Energy of Canada Limited
                          Pinawa, Manitoba   R0E 1L0

    Recent versions of VAX Workstation Services (VWS) have included a novel
and very useful new feature.  We can now take a copy (snap-shot) of the
contents of a window and then paste the copy into a new window or even
back again into the source window.  Now, we find, there is a purpose for
the second and third buttons on the mouse.

    There's just a single buffer available to store the snap-shot, but
its large enough to hold 16 thousand characters.  Sorry, the snap-shot
must be text only, no diagrams or graphics.  Each new copy operation
flushes-out the previous contents of the buffer.  On our VAXstations,
the copy action functions in a manner similar to that of Mass-11 or the
text editors EVE, LSE and EDT.  That is, the text to be copied becomes
highlighted in reverse video format until the operation is complete.  A
"rubber-band" or "stretchy-box" style of identifying the text to be
copied is available - but has not been tested locally.

    To copy text from a window, do the following:

     1. Move the mouse cursor (arrow shape) to the beginning of
        the text that is to be copied.

     2. Click the mouse COPY (middle) button once.  The mouse
        cursor will be replaced by character highlighting.

     3. Drag the mouse over the zone of text that you wish to
        include in the snap-shot.

     4. Click the COPY button a second time.  This causes the
        highlighted text to be copied into the paste buffer.  Then
        the regular mouse cursor will reappear.

         Note:   Click the mouse SELECT button to abort a copy
                 operation.

    To paste the text into a window, do the following:

     1. Move the mouse cursor into the "target" window and to the
        location where you want the copied text to begin.

     2. Click the mouse PASTE (third) button.  The text in the
        paste buffer is sent to the "target" window as keyboard
        data.

    Give it a try!  Mouse Copy and Pasting can be lots of fun - and
sometimes be very useful.  For example, you can transfer difficult-
to-type commands between windows or capture program error messages
so they can be mailed intact to the VAXstation manager and support
staff.