[Impact]
* One of the upstream changes changed behavior of clipboard copying files/directories from nautilus to applications accepting text only (e.g. gnome-terminal). In such case the pasted input is prefixed with:
x-special/nautilus-clipboard
copy file://
This was not the case in earlier releases and this change has been reverted in later upstream releases.
Reverting the problematic commit will fix the usecase reported in this bug (and all applications where copying from Nautilus and pasting the data into a text-based input makes sense), but will break copying to/from Desktop Icons extension.
I recommend reporting the Desktop Icons extension issue (present already in every later Ubuntu release) in a separate bug and track the fix there.
[Test Plan]
1. Open nautilus.
2. Right-click on any file or directory and select 'Copy' from the context menu.
3. Open gnome-terminal and right-click paste the contents of the clipboard.
Expected result: path of the file/directory is pasted in the terminal.
Actual result: pasted input is prefixed with "x-special/nautilus-clipboard
copy file://"
[Where problems could occur]
* There are some workarounds listed in the upstream bug so fixing the root cause may break environments with those workarounds in place.
* Reverting this change also limits functionality of the desktop icons extension shipped with Ubuntu. Namely: before the new clipboard API is used in desktop-icons (merge requests [1] and [2]) copying and pasting to/from the desktop extension to a nautilus will not be possible via keyboard shortcuts or context menu (dragging and dropping will remain to work).
[1] https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons/-/merge_requests/186
[2] https://gitlab.gnome.org/World/ShellExtensions/desktop-icons/-/merge_requests/195
[Other Info]
Original bug description:
Until Ubuntu 18.10 Nautilus does copy all selected filenames in simple Text format and this way you cold paste the selected files as a list to other programs: for example into the texteditor gedit. This was a very useful function if you have, for example, to upload a file to webmail or other web-service. You cold copy the file within nautilus and paste it directliy to the selection dialog or webfield to upload the file.
Or if you wanted a simple List of all your files in a folder you where able to select all files with nautilus, copy and paste into gedit. This is not possible anymore. The output of natilus looks now like this:
x-special/nautilus-clipboard
copy
file:///home/<user>/Schreibtisch/new%20document.txt
Until Ubuntu 18.10 this looks like this:
/home/<user>/Schreibtisch/new document.txt
Steps to reproduce:
1. Select files with nautilus
2. Press Ctrl+C
3. open gedit
4. press Ctrl+V
ProblemType: Bug
DistroRelease: Ubuntu 19.04
Package: nautilus 1:3.32.1-0ubuntu0.19.04.0
ProcVersionSignature: Ubuntu 5.0.0-27.28-generic 5.0.21
Uname: Linux 5.0.0-27-generic x86_64
ApportVersion: 2.20.10-0ubuntu27.1
Architecture: amd64
CurrentDesktop: ubuntu:GNOME
Date: Wed Sep 11 15:06:14 2019
ExecutablePath: /usr/bin/nautilus
SourcePackage: nautilus
UpgradeStatus: No upgrade log present (probably fresh install)
usr_lib_nautilus:
Thank you for your bug report, that's known upstream and discussed there
https:/