Totally agree on ANSI escape. But then to me windows manipulations is also an entirely different "layer".

Conceptually copy/paste could fit into that layer. It's like cross-window interface.

But what do we do with ctrl-z and ctrl-a, which are strictly text manipulation?

That's why Alt, IMO, would be a better modifier. And it all organizes into layers like this:

Ctrl - common ctrl sequences (like on Mac today)

Alt - app layer (still works for terminal UIs btw, even today)

Win - os/de/win layer

But wouldn't it make more sense to use the Win key for it than Alt? I think copy/paste could fit into the OS/DE layer.

	▲	koiueo 6 days ago \| parent [-]
		Maybe. It's borderline text-editing (the majority of usages are text, and probably within the same application). Also if we consider, how it's implemented: the app is responsible for content-type negotiation, if I copy a file in my file manager, it's the file manager's responsibility to yield file contents of I paste to another file manager, and yield the file:// uri if I paste to a text editor. So also border-line app functionality... As I said, I don't see an obvious solution, and even if I had full freedom to design everything from scratch, I don't know which option I'd pick.