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This is just one of those things that I started wondering about.
Why aren't the copy/paste keyboard shortcuts (that we all love) in command prompt not aligned with the rest of the software population? I understand that it could be that historically ctrl+c and ctrl+v had different meanings in shell programs. But isn't it high time someone changed this?
Powershell was actually designed in the new century but still doesn't support ctrl+v.
Is it because windows doesn't want to break all the legacy scripts that may have assigned different uses for ctrl+v ? If that's the case, why does every major upgrade to the .Net framework deprecate some star feature from the previous version.
Everytime I do a ctrl+v on command prompt I think to my self that there must be a real good reason for things to be the way they are. I'm hoping someone would be able to tell me what it is.
Nandun
Posted 2013-11-13T21:45:33.713
Reputation: 323
In the linux terminal, ctrl+shift+v will paste. – Matthijs Wessels – 2015-01-12T13:23:12.993
It is your terminals fault. Try https://code.google.com/p/conemu-maximus5/ instead and you'll find that even ctrl+v has been outdated on modern terminals. Linux has been using better copy\paste schemes in their terminals since the beginning.
– krowe2 – 2015-01-13T21:26:53.577Linux terminals don't support ctrl+C and ctrl+V for copy and paste either, and you must use ctrl+shift+C/V instead. In the new command prompt in Windows 10 you can choose to copy/paste with ctrl+C and ctrl+V but this is still experimental – phuclv – 2015-01-18T12:21:21.377
Because Powershell uses the console host for its window. It's the job of the console host to handle (and implement) copy & paste, not Powershell's. Because the console host was changed in Windows 10 to support CTRL-V/-X/-C, these shortcuts now not only work for cmd.exe but for for Powershell as well. – Simon – 2015-01-26T09:40:10.593
@EBGreen not necessarily; you can implement Ctrl+V for paste (always) and Ctrl+C as copy (only when a block is mouse-selected) - this way, as long as you don't select any text with mouse, regular Ctrl+C for breaking is maintained (not to mention you should rather Ctrl+Break for that AFAIR due to the way keyboard interrupt works) – None – 2016-01-02T18:50:36.217
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also, funny note: http://superuser.com/questions/421463/why-does-ctrl-v-not-paste-in-bash-linux-shell (essentially the same question as this, but about nx) got more than 100 upvotes and tons of answers... and it didn't get closed, btw.
– None – 2016-01-02T18:54:06.20310This can't really be answered by anyone except the powershell design team. I can point out though that if you were to implement CTRL-v as paste then you would really need to implement CTRL-c as copy. Which would remove it as the key combination to stop execution of a command. It has been that for far longer than it has been copy. – EBGreen – 2013-11-13T21:54:54.903
1They did make it a lot easier in a
cmd.exeto paste with just a right-click anywhere in the window. It used to be (Windows XP) that you had to right-click in the title-bar, chooseEditand thenPaste(3 clicks). BTW You could make this yourself with AutoHotkey and mapping toAlt+Space,EandP. – Rik – 2013-11-13T22:33:10.903I will add that what I want is a powershell shell that understands Vi. – EBGreen – 2013-11-13T22:49:38.893
@EBGreen - I understand your point about ctrl+c. It was used to interrupt execution for the longest time. but its used to "copy" far more often in modern software. – Nandun – 2013-11-13T23:28:20.493
3@Rik I'm aware of all those methods. But you have to understand that if your job requires you to copy/paste stuff on cmd ALOT, it can get pretty annoying. – Nandun – 2013-11-13T23:30:47.330
2If you have to copy/paste stuff in Command Prompt a lot, why don’t you just learn to right-click? (You do know about QuickEdit mode, right?) – Scott – 2013-11-14T00:06:39.597
4Try getting used Ctrl-Insert to copy, Shift-Insert to paste (Shift-Del to cut). Those don't conflict with other uses, as Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V do. – Gabe – 2013-11-14T01:42:35.680
1Isn't the usage of Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V for Copy and Paste respectively only in the GUI land? Since you are working in CLI land they have their own rules. – Darius – 2013-11-14T04:30:26.650
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See http://www.github.com/lzybkr/PSReadline - it supports Ctrl+V to paste from the Windows clipboard. There is Emacs like kill ring support which is similar to the clipboard, but PSReadline does not yet cut/copy anything to the Windows clipboard.
– Jason Shirk – 2013-11-27T22:32:46.587