General OpenBSD navigation between windows

[Entropic]

Originally Posted by J65nko

Re: root

An OpenBSD install already comes with a root user/account. If you created two users then they cannot be root.

What is the output of $ ls -l /home?
Or do a recursive directory listing piped through a pager: $ ls -lR /home | less

Having done the "ls -l /home" command I see its navigated to what I thought was the secondary (non root) directory. Nonetheless its contents doesn't include anything I've successfully downloaded in FFox.. So where then is my default FFox saving its downloads!?

[Entropic]

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick

Using apropos touchpad does list the synaptics(4) man page so it doesn't seem like such a stretch to me. I will allow that the wsmouse(4) page is a little more obtuse though. Are you familiar with search engines? They can be very useful in such circumstances and would help stop you behaving like a help vampire, which would benefit everybody, including yourself.


Do you have problems reading?

The wsconsctl(8) man page explains exactly how to use that command but I'll reproduce it here because I'm feeling generous:

wsconsctl mouse.tp.tapping=1

^ That enables tap-to-click with a three-finger tap translating to a middle click.

To make the change permanent add this line to /etc/wsconsctl.conf:

mouse.tp.tapping=1

Again, as clearly described in wsconsctl.conf(5). Can you see a pattern here?

And to use synaptics(4) instead of wsmouse(4) follow my instructions given in this thread:

https://daemonforums.org/showthread.php?t=10902

A search engine would have found that for you (I've just used that technique to find it myself) but help vampires such as you seem allergic to such methods and prefer instead to spend their time whining and insulting those trying to help.

Perhaps in the same way I need to use search engines more, you too need to actually look at your past mistakes (see original thread I referenced earlier in this one) rather than trying to create a lengthy distraction (this latest reply) from what is an embarrassing demonstration of bitchy nerd elitism continued in your latest reply. Having said this, I just did a search engine (duckduck) search for "how to paste text into FVWM2 window" to get no useful results, and regarding the man pages I'm not the only one who finds difficulties in trying to find practically useful guidance per this online question post: https://unix.stackexchange.com/quest...erm-on-openbsd (Note the OP's comment about the man pages not actually explaining how to do it).

I've entered the

wsconsctl mouse.tp.tapping=1

command btw, but how do you actually paste what you've CTRL-C (copied) from one window into the FVWM2 window? I've tried tapping three times and pressed all four of the available hardwired buttons to no avail. Thankfully the "SHIFT-INS" performs the pasting function successfully (why wasn't that even mentioned here?) but it serves as a good example of how the guides that are hailed as being infallible here do actually leave a lot to be desired when looking to practically apply their contents..

[J65nko]

Re: Downloads directory

 $ ls -l /home
drwxr-xr-x  52 adriaan  adriaan  4096 Feb  8 01:57 adriaan
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel     512 Aug  2  2022 ftp
drwxr-xr-x   4 j65nko   j65nko    512 Aug 22 23:36 j65nko
drwxr-xr-x   3 snap     snap      512 Jun 24  2022 snap

This command shows the home directories of the users. This was meant for you to check the two user accounts you created.

If you don't show anything these commands produce it will be impossible to figure out where your Downloads directory hangs out ......

I also suggested to do $ ls -lR /home | less to see all the directories and their contents.
If you keep ignoring half of my efforts to help you, it will be very difficult

My final effort: $ ls -lR /home | grep -i download
In my case this produces:

adriaan@lenap[~]ls -lR /home | grep -i download
drwxr-xr-x   2 adriaan  adriaan      1024 Feb  7 05:55 Downloads
drwx------   4 adriaan  adriaan      8192 Jan 11 01:40 Downloads.old
/home/adriaan/Downloads:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old/Meijer.Pietje_files:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old/Meijer.Pietje_files/23886146_data:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old/Meijer.Pietje_files/iframe_data:

If this does not show your Downloads folder it is not there. Case closed

[frcc]

Just by chance, if you are using Firefox, check where the default Downloads folder is set to in the Settings section of the browser. It can be found by clicking on the upper right hand corner of the browser window "the three horizontal lines" then goto General and you can see where the default is set to under Downloads, save file to: "your choice", which normally by default is the /home/Downloads directory.

And of course that assumes that a /home/user/Downloads directory exists, if not create one if that is where you want Download files to go. "Note: the capital "D" in Downloads

If this is off target ignore please.

[Onauk]

I had a hard time finding the Downloads directory too through FFox. What I finally did was bookmark the Downloads directory with Nautilus then when FFox asked me where to save a file, I could select the Downloads directory and all was good.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by Entropic

I just did a search engine (duckduck) search for "how to paste text into FVWM2 window" to get no useful results

The problem of copy&paste is due to xterm rather than the window manager — it is very old and pre-dates such niceties.

You can get the traditional <ctrl>+c/<ctrl>+v shortcuts working in xterm by adding these lines to ~/.Xresources:

*vt100.translations: #override \n\
   Ctrl Shift <Key>C: copy-selection(CLIPBOARD) \n\
   Ctrl Shift <Key>V: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD)

Then either log out & back in again or run

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

I don't bother with that myself though because the PRIMARY method is quicker and easier.

Originally Posted by Entropic

how do you actually paste what you've CTRL-C (copied) from one window into the FVWM2 window?

For the PRIMARY selection don't use <ctrl>+c at all — just left-click and drag and whatever is highlighted will be copied, then use middle-click to paste the highlighted text. No need to touch the keyboard at all.

[Entropic]

Originally Posted by J65nko

Re: Downloads directory

 $ ls -l /home
drwxr-xr-x  52 adriaan  adriaan  4096 Feb  8 01:57 adriaan
drwxr-xr-x   2 root     wheel     512 Aug  2  2022 ftp
drwxr-xr-x   4 j65nko   j65nko    512 Aug 22 23:36 j65nko
drwxr-xr-x   3 snap     snap      512 Jun 24  2022 snap

This command shows the home directories of the users. This was meant for you to check the two user accounts you created.

If you don't show anything these commands produce it will be impossible to figure out where your Downloads directory hangs out ......

I also suggested to do $ ls -lR /home | less to see all the directories and their contents.
If you keep ignoring half of my efforts to help you, it will be very difficult

My final effort: $ ls -lR /home | grep -i download
In my case this produces:

adriaan@lenap[~]ls -lR /home | grep -i download
drwxr-xr-x   2 adriaan  adriaan      1024 Feb  7 05:55 Downloads
drwx------   4 adriaan  adriaan      8192 Jan 11 01:40 Downloads.old
/home/adriaan/Downloads:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old/Meijer.Pietje_files:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old/Meijer.Pietje_files/23886146_data:
/home/adriaan/Downloads.old/Meijer.Pietje_files/iframe_data:

If this does not show your Downloads folder it is not there. Case closed

Hi J65nko,

Thanks for your detailed guidance on finding the FFox downloads DIR. It turns out that FFox in OpenBSD has a bug whereby it doesn't actually show the directory you've specifically selected for downloads in the settings screen.

By using your [cmd=$]ls -lR /home | less[/cmd I noticed that FFox was actually saving all these files that I couldn't find in the /home/downloads directory in a discrete directory that I'd specified about a month ago on first installing FFox and customising the "save to" directory. I wish I could screenshot the relevant areas of the FFox settings screen to demonstrate what I mean, but in case you're wondering its in the top right three bar menu --> settings --> "Files and Applications --> Save files to" section. where it shows nothing, even after stipulating a specific "save to" directory. Nontheless I changed it to "default" and now everything I download is appearing in the home/downloads folder as expected

I think in future it would help if I could properly use script to dump my commands for your viewing to see where I might be making command input errors on this or other issues I'm seeking help on. Now I've just used [cmd]script -a <filename.typescript> to generate a dump of my xterm command inputs, but on using vi to review what it's generated I don't see anything that represents my xterm inputs, and I seem to remember that I have to "exit the shell" or something to get it to actually generate/finalise the typescript file? I've attached the typescript in question in case that helps in figuring out where I'm going wrong.

[Entropic]

Originally Posted by frcc

Just by chance, if you are using Firefox, check where the default Downloads folder is set to in the Settings section of the browser. It can be found by clicking on the upper right hand corner of the browser window "the three horizontal lines" then goto General and you can see where the default is set to under Downloads, save file to: "your choice", which normally by default is the /home/Downloads directory.

And of course that assumes that a /home/user/Downloads directory exists, if not create one if that is where you want Download files to go. "Note: the capital "D" in Downloads

If this is off target ignore please.

Thanks frcc. Per my reply made just now to J65nko, it turns out that FFox on OpenBSD fails to show what you've previously set as the specified "Download To" directory. I've now set it to default and it's saving files in the familiar home/downloads DIR so problem solved.

[Entropic]

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick

The problem of copy&paste is due to xterm rather than the window manager — it is very old and pre-dates such niceties.

You can get the traditional <ctrl>+c/<ctrl>+v shortcuts working in xterm by adding these lines to ~/.Xresources:

*vt100.translations: #override \n\
   Ctrl Shift <Key>C: copy-selection(CLIPBOARD) \n\
   Ctrl Shift <Key>V: insert-selection(CLIPBOARD)

Then either log out & back in again or run

xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources

I don't bother with that myself though because the PRIMARY method is quicker and easier.


For the PRIMARY selection don't use <ctrl>+c at all — just left-click and drag and whatever is highlighted will be copied, then use middle-click to paste the highlighted text. No need to touch the keyboard at all.

Ok, thanks for the advice about adding lines to the /Xresources (config file?)

Regarding

For the PRIMARY selection don't use <ctrl>+c at all — just left-click and drag and whatever is highlighted will be copied, then use middle-click to paste the highlighted text. No need to touch the keyboard at all.

I've found that if I double tap and then drag to the right on a given line of text it does the usual highlighting of the selection to be copied, but when I try to drag it off screen, to go to a different window (like the secondary XTerm window I've got running on one of the other 9 screens), it doesn't let me transfer to the different window where I'm then doing what to "paste" ?

[frcc]

Great, glad you got that solved, enjoy.

[Head_on_a_Stick]

Originally Posted by Entropic

I've found that if I double tap and then drag to the right on a given line of text it does the usual highlighting of the selection to be copied, but when I try to drag it off screen, to go to a different window (like the secondary XTerm window I've got running on one of the other 9 screens), it doesn't let me transfer to the different window where I'm then doing what to "paste" ?

Drag & drop simply doesn't work with xterm. Selecting the text by double left-clicking at the beginning then right clicking at the end of the desired text (with no dragging) does copy it to the PRIMARY, which can be very useful if the text fills multiple screens, and it can then be pasted with middle-click. No need to drag anything, which I would think is actually much more convenient.

Once you get used to the PRIMARY selection mechanism you won't want to go back to the CLIPBOARD. Lack of a PRIMARY is one of the things that keeps me away from Windows :-)

[Entropic]

Originally Posted by Head_on_a_Stick

Drag & drop simply doesn't work with xterm. Selecting the text by double left-clicking at the beginning then right clicking at the end of the desired text (with no dragging) does copy it to the PRIMARY, which can be very useful if the text fills multiple screens, and it can then be pasted with middle-click. No need to drag anything, which I would think is actually much more convenient.

Once you get used to the PRIMARY selection mechanism you won't want to go back to the CLIPBOARD. Lack of a PRIMARY is one of the things that keeps me away from Windows :-)

Thanks Matthew and what about if I want to copy text (past command line entries that I've created in the Xterm window) elsewhere? e.g. To paste into these forums for troubleshooting? I just tried, for example, copying a random line of text I made in Xterm into a new Libreoffice doc, but it didn't work using this PRIMARY method you explained above.

Also, if I'm going in the reverse direction, such as trying to copy a useful new command line (e.g. mouse.tp etc...) from a firefox window to an Xterm window where I want to run it, how am I actually pasting it after copying it to PRIMARY (Remember I don't technically have a middle mouse button on this trackpad). I think we mapped it to something else when I entered that mouse.tp command you posted earlier in this thread...

[Head_on_a_Stick]

PRIMARY works with any application for me. Read my earlier posts if you can't remember how to do it.