Registers (yank / paste)

rtdvi has named registers like vim — and one of them is wired to the system clipboard, so copy/paste between rtdvi and the rest of your desktop doesn't need a plugin or extra keystrokes.

In-memory named registers

Prefix any yank, delete, or paste with "<letter> to target a named register. Letters a..z (case-insensitive — upper folds to lower) all work.

"ayy   yank current line into register a
"add   delete current line into register a
"ap    paste register a after the cursor
"by3w  yank three words into register b
"bd$   delete to end-of-line into register b

The unnamed register (vim's "") is always updated as well, so a plain p pastes whatever you most recently yanked or deleted — regardless of which named slot it also landed in.

Visual mode works the same way: select with v / V / <C-v>, then "ay or "ad.

If you start a prefix and bail (" then <Esc> or any non-letter), the register selection is cancelled and a status message says so.

System clipboard register

One letter — q by default, configurable — is special. Anything yanked into it gets piped to wl-copy (Wayland), xclip (X11), or pbcopy (macOS). Anything pasted from it reads the same clipboard via wl-paste / xclip -o / pbpaste.

"qyy   yank current line to the system clipboard
"qd$   delete-and-cut to end-of-line
"qp    paste from the system clipboard

Why this design:

• Internal clipboard is the default. Most yanks don't need to leave the editor; routing them all to wl-copy clutters the system clipboard.
• Same "<letter> syntax everywhere. No + / * distinction from vim — you don't have to remember a separate notation for the system clipboard.
• One letter sacrificed. q is vim's macro-record key, which rtdvi doesn't have. Change it via options.system_clipboard_register if you'd prefer to reserve q for something else.

The unnamed register still updates after "qyy, so a subsequent plain p pastes locally without re-reading the system clipboard.

Clipboard tools

By default rtdvi probes your environment:

Override with explicit [options] entries when the defaults don't fit (e.g. you prefer wl-copy --primary, or you're on a server with xsel installed instead of xclip):

[options]
clipboard_copy_cmd  = ["wl-copy"]
clipboard_paste_cmd = ["wl-paste", "--no-newline"]

If the configured copy tool isn't on PATH, the yank still updates the local unnamed register, but a status-line message reports the failure so you don't silently lose data.

Linewise heuristic

Internal yanks remember whether they were line-wise (yy) or character-wise (yw), so p knows whether to paste on the next line or after the cursor.

The system clipboard has no metadata, so rtdvi falls back to a heuristic on "qp: text ending in \n is treated as line-wise. Same as vim's * / + behaviour.

Implementation

• src/registers.rs — Registers state, the "<letter> pre-trie hook (try_consume_key), and the store / read_for_paste funnels every yank/delete/paste passes through.
• src/editor.rs — unnamed_register (the default destination) and named_registers (the a..z map).
• src/yank_actions.rs, src/delete_actions.rs, src/visual_actions.rs — call sites.

There's exactly one place in the code that decides whether a yank goes to memory or the OS clipboard: registers::store. Adding more special destinations (a search register, a numbered ring) is purely additive there.