I had some trouble with copy-pasting text from vim in terminal to Google Docs (aka Drive) document (hereafter GDd) in FF browser (with Vimperator).

Note:

• I have a file opened in Vim 7.2 in terminal
• :version displays both +clipboard and +xterm-clipboard
• I'm on Ubuntu 10.04 LTS, so I don't think that's Unity-related
• I want to use Vim, not GVim, nor gedit...
• I'm avid fan of mouseless navigation, so solution with mouse was not what I wanted.
• I have the solution, but I need understanding.

What I tried and where it gets me:

• Yanking whole file text via: ggvGy allows me to:
  • paste it via mouse middle button, NOT with Ctrl+v or Shift+Insert
    1. here, in text area for entering question text
    2. in gedit
    3. but NOT in GDd where I want it pasted, even if I switch Vimperator to pass-through mode with Insert
  • does NOT show in XClip after xclip -o
  • From gedit, I can copy-paste the text into GDd (Vimperator's pass-through mode not required).
• :%! !xclip -i (or :first, last)
  1. reports whole file (all lines, to be precise) as filtered, though shell returns 1
  2. `xclip -o' returns nothing (is empty) or returns previously copied value
  3. with 2. no surprise, but I can't paste at all not only to GDd but also to gedit or here
• setting clipboard (:set clipboard=unnamed) to unnamed doesn't help
• using "+y or "*y on whole file text actually does the trick

So, the question (it's actually three, say "split" and I will):

1. why middle mouse button pastes different things than Ctrl+v and how to know what will be pasted with each?
2. why just yanking (without registers) works with mouse but not with keyboard / XClip?
3. why didn't unnamed register help? After setting, it should make unnamed and * registers same?