How strange ...

[Qqmike]

Boy, I just learned something, still figuring it out! In 20.04.
I wrote a rather long detailed email to a friend, took quite awhile, maybe 30 minutes. Had to do some research to write it, fetching links, etc.. I must have hit some key ... or something ... toward the end of writing this ... it disappeared and I could only see a fragment of the last sentence I had been typing.

Looked in Thunderbird Drafts folder, not there. There was only a sentence fragment, that last sentence I was typing (and I must have hit Save -- and it overwrote the previous draft?).
Opened the hidden T-Bird profile folder, didn't see anything there (other than the two Drafts folders).
Was about to give up.
Checked Clipboard, I could recognize the opening paragraph of my email, opened that entry, and there was the entire, complete draft of the lengthy, detailed email I had written!

I didn't copy that email to the Clipboard, not explicitly. As I typed that long email, I would occasionally click only the Save button (in T-Bird).

How nice, how strange. I've actually never really had to use the contents of Clipboard, per se. Until now. But how did that entire email text get there?

[Snowhog]

Is this pertinent? https://userbase.kde.org/Klipper

[Qqmike]

Is this pertinent? https://userbase.kde.org/Klipper

No, not really. In my case, I didn't copy anything from my email to the clipboard. I didn't know I was even using the clipboard. In Thunderbird, I had a draft open, was writing in that draft, periodically pressing the Save button in T-Bird (to save the current version of the email). Unless ... I accidentally hit some sequence of keys that cut all that text and copied it to the clipboard! That's the only thing that could have happened. Before I realize that I lost the email text, I had accidentally slipped on the keyboard, hitting some keys (with the left hand) ... Hmmm... The outcome, though, whatever the reason, was happy. It saved me maybe an hour having to reconstruct exactly what I had taken 30 minutes to write.

[jlittle]

It sounds to me that you inadvertently selected the text, and typed something which caused it to be deleted. But, by default in X, and I presume Wayland, just selecting the text causes it to be "copied" to the "clipboard". (The lack of this gets me every time when using Windows or a Mac.)

(I used quotes there because originally in X no copying was involved; X kept a "selection" that pointed into the application with the data. Close the application, and it was gone. So utilities like Klipper were invented, that watch the "selection" and whenever it changes, leap in and make a copy.)

[claydoh]

Normally, just highlighting text can automatically copy text, which of course ends up in Klipper.
It depends on the settings one has in Klipper, though.

These are the default settings, at least in Plasma 5.24.5 (except for the history size-- I use this feature a lot at times, so I have a large history set at the moment, and for some reason, setting things to "default" didn't change this.)



The KDE Help handbook sort of describes the options here, but imo not well enough, especially since we are dealing with a few layers - xorg's two clipboard buffers, plus Klipper's extra features on top of those.

One is the traditional ctrl-c/ctrl-v (or right-click options) copy-paste "clipboard" buffer .
The other one Linux (or rather Xorg) has is the "selection" buffer -- highlighted text that can be pasted via the middle-mouse button, without needing to use shortcuts or menu actions. This normally is not saved, but desktop environments created utilities like Klipper to manage these buffers, and add useful features.


What you likely did was simply highlight the text at some point, which Klipper stored, depending on the settings you have.

So Ignore Selection tells Klipper to ignore text selection. Essentially disables Klipper's use of the "selection" buffer.

With this option set, the option Ignore selection will prevent Klipper from including the contents of the selection in its clipboard history

This is the option you probably want to make sure is set

[claydoh]

(The lack of this gets me every time when using Windows or a Mac.)

Lol, I think this single feature has kept me from using Windows for any length of time!

[Qqmike]

Definitely good ideas. BUT ... I am 100% certain (this time) I did not select all that text (the completed email). And, yes, I do often see that if you simply select text, it gets copied to clipboard -- and sometimes I find that useful, actually. BUT ...

claydoh: the traditional ctrl-c/ctrl-v (or right-click options) copy-paste "clipboard" buffer .

Ha! I slipped, as I said, with the LEFT hand hitting some keys: what is the shortcut for "cut"?

pressing ctrl-c to copy it or ctrl-x to cut it to the clipboard. Press ctrl-v or `shift-insert` to paste

Ha! If it is ctrl+x, it is VERY possible that's what I did. This has happened before, but it didn't cause such a fuss.
It might pay for me to slow down a bit on my sloppy keyboarding!

I think that's it: Ctrl+x => I cut it but didn't paste it anywhere. So it's on the clipboard. In the future, I can try pasting it somewhere, like back into the email draft.

Thanks, guys, I really think that's what happened ... what else could it be? Yes, I know you can easily select text and forget to do something with it. In this case, I definitely did not select that entire finished email ... I was ready to hit the Send button on it (in T-Bird). Also, no need to select it because I knew I had been saving it as a draft every time I wrote a sentence or two.

[Don B. Cilly]

Question: What is the most useful key combination ever devised?
Answer: Crtl-Z :·)

(I'm 99% sure it would have worked in this case)

[Qqmike]

Interesting. Depends on the app from where it is called ...
https://linuxhint.com/ctrl_z_ubuntu/

How about “Ctrl + Z”? Like I said earlier, depending on the apps you’re using, this specific keyboard shortcut may mean different things. Today, let’s take a look on the functions of “Ctrl + Z” on Ubuntu.
The basic usage
It’s very common that we use “Ctrl + Z” for undoing any mistake we perform. For example, I want to type “I love Linux!” on the text editor ...

... and it also is used to pause processes ...

But it gave me the idea to construct a test-dummy email, then I hit Ctrl+x which did nothing. So my conjecture was wrong (about Ctrl+x cutting to the clipboard).

However, while in that same test-dummy email, I hit Ctrl+Z, and it caused the text in the email to disappear.
But that text is not on the clipboard.

So now, I'm back to Square 1: How did my OP original mistake and cure happen?
How did my email text vanish (what keys did I accidental hit with the left hand?) and then end up on the clipboard?

[Don B. Cilly]

Try: type - or paste - some random text in an editor - e-mail, plain text, even here,
- Select it all (Ctrl-A)
- Delete it (or cut it)
- Press the Panic Button (Ctrl-Z). What it does, basically is... it Undoes :·) Obviously, it would behave differently in other applications - notably Konsole/Terminal - but for text (and graphics), it's usually Undo.

Now, to reproduce what happened to you, I would have to press Ctrl-A and then Ctrl-X (or Shift-Del). But there might be other ways.

[EDIT] Most text apps (including this editor in Firefox, I just tried) also use Shift-Ctrl-Z for Redo. So if you type Ctrl-Z and it causes you text to disappear (it Undoes your last (continuous) action), Redo should fix it. Some apps (notably graphics editors, like Gimp) also have multiple levels of Undo/Redo - what's called "Undo history".

[claydoh]

So what are your Klipper settings?

Unless you explicitly have the Ignore Selection enabled, copying can occur without using any copy-action shortcuts at all.

simply highlighting the text would do it.
crtl-a (select all text) without any other shortcuts would do it


No idea if there is something specific in Thunderbird that would do this (very unlikely, I'd guess)

[Qqmike]

OK, I logged on to report another experiment, and you guys are ahead of me. We are on the same page now!

I am (almost) certain this is what happened to me, OP:
My left hand slipped or something.
It hit Ctrl+a.
So my entire email was highlighted by that.
Not paying attention, I kept typing some new paragraph text.
By doing so, my highlighted email text was overwritten by that new typing.
But, that email text that was highlighted was on my clipboard.

This is consistent with the experiment of Don B. Cilly (which I also followed: the Ctrl+z did do a restore in the experiment, btw), and claydoh's last comment re ctrl+a.
AFAIK, nothing specific in T-Bird, per se.
It is all on Ctrl+a.

As I said, this has happened before, and left me wondering and lost (about disappearing text).

I am a fast two-finger typer, been doing it since 4th grade, faster than many 'professional' typers. But ... clumsy actions do occur.
In addition, I'm an obsessive SAVE-r in T-Bird, LibreOffice, etc.
So that action is going on, too, quickly, all the time.
Better slow down, somewhat!

Many thanks, guys, for all the input. Lessons learned here. All 3 of those keys are on the far left of the keyboard, +a, +z, +x. Interesting.

[Don B. Cilly]

Hey, I hit Ctrl instead of Shift quite often. Which will lead to unwanted results. Well, maybe not that often, but often enough considering the results...
That's why I say Ctrl-z is the best key combination ever devised :·)

[Qqmike]

Thanks, again, DBC 👍