Copy and Paste

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As a long time windows user I am used to copy and paste files. There is no direct equivalent in OSX Lion as far as I know (which sadly to say is not very far).
A work around is first to duplicate the file and then drag the duplicated file to the desired directory and then finally rename it to the original name.
Question: Is there a better way ????
John
 
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There is a Move feature, but it's hidden at first. Right click on the file you want to move and copy it. Navigate to the new location. While holding down the Option key, right click in the folder. There should be an option that says "Move Item Here". Choose that and there you go!

It's basically the same as in Windows, except you have to hold the Option key as paste the item.
 
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There is a Move feature, but it's hidden at first. Right click on the file you want to move and copy it. Navigate to the new location. While holding down the Option key, right click in the folder. There should be an option that says "Move Item Here". Choose that and there you go!

It's basically the same as in Windows, except you have to hold the Option key as paste the item.

This works well to move a file, but is not different from just dragging the file to the new location. It does not work to copy a file to another directory, maintaining the original file in its original directory.
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Lion has Copy and Paste. If you press Command + C you are ready to copy. Go to new location. If you press Command + V you will copy a version of the file to this location. If you press Command + Option + V then you get a cut and paste.
 
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Or simply go into Edit in the Menu Bar.
 
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Or on your trackpad, if you have one, just enable the right click feature and all you have to do is tap it with 2 fingers, which displays the right click menu. Under system preferences, click trackpad, then select secondary click.
 
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Lion has Copy and Paste. If you press Command + C you are ready to copy. Go to new location. If you press Command + V you will copy a version of the file to this location. If you press Command + Option + V then you get a cut and paste.

Thanks, This works fine.
The other comment made by harryb "simple go into Edit in the menu bar" is out of my reach. I don't know what is meant by this.
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Do you have right-clicking enabled on your mouse? If so, you just right-click on a file and choose "Copy" from the context menu that pops up. Then navigate to wherever you want to paste the file, right-click again and choose "Paste".

What harryb meant is that the usual edit functions (cut, copy, paste, etc) are also found under the Edit menu in your menu bar, which runs along the top of your screen. With a Finder window open and the file you want to copy selected, click on the Edit menu and there you can access Copy and Paste from the drop-down list.

So basically there are three ways you can copy and paste a file: by right-clicking on it, using the Edit menu in your top menu bar, or using the shortcut keys. It depends on what's easiest for you. But you won't be able to right click on anything unless it's been enabled in your mouse settings in System Preferences.
 
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As a long time windows user I am used to copy and paste files. There is no direct equivalent in OSX Lion as far as I know (which sadly to say is not very far).
A work around is first to duplicate the file and then drag the duplicated file to the desired directory and then finally rename it to the original name.
Question: Is there a better way ????
John


I think you haven't enable your trackpad right click gesture.
FOLLOW THIS IF YOU USE TRACKPAD
System Preferences
Trackpad
Point & Click tab
Tick the check box on "Secondary Click".
you should be able to use/view copy and paste.

FOLLOW THIS IF YOU USE MAGIC MOUSE
System Preferences
Mouse
Point & Click tab
Tick the check box on "Secondary Click".
you should be able to use/view copy and paste.

OR USE SHORT CUT KEYS as mentioned by @pigstick.
command+C - copy
command+X - cut
command+V - paste
 
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Do you have right-clicking enabled on your mouse? If so, you just right-click on a file and choose "Copy" from the context menu that pops up. Then navigate to wherever you want to paste the file, right-click again and choose "Paste".

What harryb meant is that the usual edit functions (cut, copy, paste, etc) are also found under the Edit menu in your menu bar, which runs along the top of your screen. With a Finder window open and the file you want to copy selected, click on the Edit menu and there you can access Copy and Paste from the drop-down list.

Right clicking on a file does not do anything. Left or right clicking only selects the file.
You have to right click the 5th icon on the menu bar. See attachment. I presume you associate this icon with the Edit menu.

2012-05-12_18-49-20.png
 
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Hi,


Right clicking on a file does not do anything. Left or right clicking only selects the file.
Not sure why right click copy and paste is not available to you, I can do this with just one file or holding down the cmd key multiple files.

copy.jpg
 

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Then you're not right clicking correctly. Right clicking always brings up copy. There are many ways to either copy/paste or simply cut/move.

Set the trackpad to right click by making sure that tap to click is enabled * trackpad preferences* and use two fingers to gently tap the trackpad. That is right click. One gentle tap is left click.

Doug

Screen Shot 2012-05-12 at 8.22.03 PM.png
 
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Mysterious things are happening here. Repeated selections of the "testfile" finaly producedv the desired puldown menu. No matter how often I repeated the selection, it never again failrd to produce the pulldown menu. Hover, once in a while it produced a different pulldown menu. I did not do anything different, just selected the testfile in the same way.
If I wanted to produce this odd pulldown menu, I would not know how to go about to generate it in a deliberate way. Only by repeated selection could I get it. Maybe once out of 10 or 20 tries.
Any ideas how this is generated???
John.

2012-05-12_21-18-46.png

2012-05-13_06-32-23.png
 
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Mysterious things are happening here. Repeated selections of the "testfile" finaly producedv the desired puldown menu. No matter how often I repeated the selection, it never again failrd to produce the pulldown menu. Hover, once in a while it produced a different pulldown menu. I did not do anything different, just selected the testfile in the same way.
If I wanted to produce this odd pulldown menu, I would not know how to go about to generate it in a deliberate way. Only by repeated selection could I get it. Maybe once out of 10 or 20 tries.
Any ideas how this is generated???
John.

I think that is because you double-clicked on the actual filename and it highlighted itself in blue as shown in your image. Here you can manually rename the filename by typing over the existing one.

Have you also considered using the "Make Alias" function ? The Alias file can then be stored in a different place and will constantly update itself when you change the original.
 
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@jott, you CLICK the file name and then you right-click on it. That's why you are getting that blue color.

DO THIS
-click on the file icon then right click on it. DO NOT CLICK THE FILE NAME because you will accidentally double click it.


Careful with double click and click. They give completely different result.
 
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Some more observations:
To select the file it does not make any difference if I click on the icon or the file name. The file will be highlighted in dark blue and a then a right click will produce the edit pulldown menu.
To generate the other odd pulldown menu in a deliberate way I found out that this is done by selecting the file by left click, this will first highlight the file in dark blue. If at this time you select the file again with a left click, it will show the light blue as seen in the attachement. (sometimes it might take a second left click). When you see this light blue highlight then a right click will produce the odd pulldown as shown in my previous post.

2012-05-13_09-25-10.png
 
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one more thing I forgot to mention: A double left click on the file (name or icon) will display the content of the file.
 
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Some more observations:
To select the file it does not make any difference if I click on the icon or the file name. The file will be highlighted in dark blue and a then a right click will produce the edit pulldown menu.

Exactly. That is normal.


To generate the other odd pulldown menu in a deliberate way I found out that this is done by selecting the file by left click, this will first highlight the file in dark blue. If at this time you select the file again with a left click, it will show the light blue as seen in the attachement. (sometimes it might take a second left click). When you see this light blue highlight then a right click will produce the odd pulldown as shown in my previous post.

When you left click an icon once, it will highlight the entire file name and icon
When you left click a file name (not the icon of the file) it will highlight the file name with different kind of blue. This will give you the option to rename it. This is a short cut for renaming a file. So when you right click on this different kind of blue thing, other drop down choices is shown (it will be about spelling, grammar etc.) since it is now about the text being highlighted and not the file.
 
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one more thing I forgot to mention: A double left click on the file (name or icon) will display the content of the file.


Yes. That's how you open a file.


SUMMARY
(1) Left click once on file name or icon -> will highlight the entire file and icon

(2) Left click twice on file name or icon that is already highlighted -> will open the file

(3) Left click file name twice (with interval) that is already highlighted -> will rename the file

(4) Right click on file or icon already highlighted -> will give drop down choices on what you want to do with the FILE.

(5) Right click on FILE NAME after doing (3) -> will give drop down choices on what you want to do with the FILE NAME alone
 
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This sums it up nicely. It took a lot of trial and errors for me to find all this out the hard way. I presume there is somewhere a proper source for all this wisdom to acquire without having to go through all this work.
Thanks to everyone for his help.
John
 

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