Bug when using clipboard_function

[matheuskknd]

Hello again, @ragardner. How are you doing?

I've recently noticed a bug when we use clipboard_function (both custom or the default one) if some cell text has the " character on it. Here follows a sample code and steps for reproduction:

#!/usr/bin/env python3
# -*- coding: UTF-8 -*-

import weakref
from tkinter import messagebox, simpledialog
from typing import Any, Callable, Literal, cast

import customtkinter as ctk
import tksheet


class TableFrame(ctk.CTkFrame):

	def __init__(self, master: Any, **kwargs: Any) -> None:
		super().__init__(master, **kwargs)

		# Creating the spreadsheet as an attribute
		self.sheet: tksheet.Sheet = tksheet.Sheet(
			self,
			headers=["A", "B"],
			data=[[1, 'text"'], ['', '3']],
		)
		self.sheet.pack(expand=True, fill="both")
		self.sheet.enable_bindings("all")

		# Creating a highlighted readonly span
		span: tksheet.Span = self.sheet.span(0, 1, 2, 2)
		span.highlight(bg="green", fg="black", redraw=False)
		span.readonly(True)


def main():
	ctk.set_appearance_mode("light")
	ctk.set_default_color_theme("blue")

	root = ctk.CTk()
	root.geometry("800x400")
	root.title("customtkinter + tksheet")

	tabela = TableFrame(root)
	tabela.pack(expand=True, fill="both", padx=10, pady=10)

	root.mainloop()


if __name__ == "__main__":
	main()

Steps to reproduce:

Scenario 1: WORKS 100%

1. Select cell B1, then press CTRL+C (same using the rc copy feature)
2. Now paste the text into a notepad (Windows Notepad, for example)
3. The pasted text will perfectly correspond to the one inside the B1 cell

Scenario 2: FAILS

1. Select cells B1 to B2, then press CTRL+C (same using the rc copy feature)
2. Now paste the text into a notepad (Windows Notepad, for example)
3. The pasted text corresponding to the cell B1 will not represent properly the text actually inside it

Scenario 3: FAILS

1. Select cells A1 to B1, then press CTRL+C (same using the rc copy feature)
2. Now paste the text into a notepad (Windows Notepad, for example)
3. The pasted text corresponding to the cell B1 will not represent properly the text actually inside it

Tested on: Windows 11, Python 3.12.8 and tksheet 7.5.12

Best regards

[ragardner]

Hello,

Thanks for raising the issue,

I determined that it was due to the python csv library being used to write to clipboard if there's more than one cell selected. I could not change this default behavior because the csv library relies on quote characters and escape characters such as the double quote in this instance.

I therefore added a new binding Ctrl + Alt + C and a new menu option in the right click menu for copying multiple cells without the csv library being involved.

I hope this is ok but let me know if you think it needs a different solution.

[matheuskknd]

Sorry, @ragardner. I think the "Ctrl + Alt + C" approach won't solve the problem here. When I give it a try I get "?" character typed on a cell... Maybe it's something with the Brazil ABNT2 keyboard pattern used here. I'm not sure.

Anyways, after you inform that tksheet relies on the default python csv library I got a read into it and also on some tksheet functions like main_table.MainTable.io_csv_writer (used to create the CSV text) and functions.get_data_from_clipboard + functions.get_csv_str_dialect (used to read back from CSV text).

I think that maybe instead of forcing the use of csv.excel_tab dialect, if you allow the programmer to specify his/her own csv.Dialect subclass via Sheet.__init__ parameter would 100% solve the problem at least for main_table.MainTable.io_csv_writer if you use it (I tested here and it worked). However, when I try to put the text back into the sheet, the functions.get_csv_str_dialect returns a dialect that won't parse the text back correctly. I'm stuck on what to do here for it to work out of the box because you are using csv.Sniffer().sniff ... and the python csv lib will never return a user created dialect subclass, not even if registered via csv.register_dialect... So I asked GPT what could be done here to "bypass this limitation" and it suggested some thing like this:

def dialect_is_compatible(csv_string: str, dialect: csv.Dialec) -> bool:
	try:
		csv.reader(io.StringIO(csv_string), dialect=dialect)
		return True

	except Exception:
		return False

Maybe invoking this function using the csv text agains the programmer dialect before trying to use the default sniffer would do the job. But the expert on the tksheet internals here is you. So, what could be done here?

PS.: I don't know if I'm doing something wrong, but I tried to do this on the sample code above and it had no effect at all to change tksheet behaviour:

		# Replace default copy accelerators by plain copy ones and vice-versa
		self.sheet.set_options(
			copy_accelerator="Ctrl+Alt+C",
			copy_contents_accelerator="Ctrl+Alt+C",
			copy_plain_accelerator="Ctrl+C",
			copy_contents_plain_image="Ctrl+C", 
		)

With or without theses lines the round-trip works, only the the extracted text has several quotes "text""" (maybe this is the "correct CSV representation" and I din't know?).

Best regards

[matheuskknd]

I realized the tksheet round-trip was actually working well. So the csv representation being weird/diferrent is not a problem for now, maybe. But I would still like to know these "plain copy" variants are expected to work and how to use them with diferent keyword bindings.

Thank you very much in advance, @ragardner!

[ragardner]

Thanks very much for your reports, I will hopefully get back to you very soon on this and with a new version

[ragardner]

Hello,

I have released 7.5.14.

Relevant to this conversation:

• I have changed the binding for copy text to Ctrl + Ins. I apologize for the previous binding I think it was clashing with some keyboard shortcuts for various languages and I should have known this.
• I agree with your great suggestion about adding a setting for the to clipboard dialect, and I have done so in this release.

About the copy text option, after consideration I have left it in. Your report about the additional double quotes was interesting -

The csv.writer deals with issues like delimiter and quote characters inside cells using quote characters and escape characters and it turns out that some users have use cases for a copy option without those added.

If you want I can add a setting to disable it from appearing in the menu, I was also thinking about adding an optional pretty printing menu item.

Full release notes:

Removed:

• Removed settings for cut_contents, copy_contents and the new plain equivalent added in 7.5.13. These settings now use the same as the usual cut and copy settings.

Changed:

• Mac OS now binds both mouse button 2 and 3 for right click #2.
• Changed copy text binding to Ctrl + Ins.
• Changed copy text icon to differentiate from the normal copy.

Added:

• Right click binding setting to modify which buttons/keys are used for right click.
• Setting for changing the to clipboard csv writer dialect.

Fixed:

• Tab characters causing cell text overflow.
• Don't show tooltip when resizing is enabled and mouse is over grid lines in index or header.
• More right click menu filtering based on selections.