Hi August,

On 2020-01-07 18:39:00, you wrote to me:

 WvV>> That's right. You have to tell it on the command line with the
 WvV>> correct options and commands what it needs to do with what you type.

 AA> Update:  I *can* dump the contents of my clipboard in that area.  But how
 AA> do I save the results

When you give gpg data through stdin, it's output will be on stdout, where you
can copy/paste it from.

 AA>  and start the encryption process?

You will have to tell it on the command line to do encryption with a commnad -e
for encryption -s for signing -a for ascii armoured output, or -sea when you
want to combine those.

 AA> If gpg.exe is allowed without initial arguments/options, I am
 AA> surprised that it runs at all.

It's a feature. If you don't give it any command line options it expects key or
encrypted material on stdin. This is also so you can pipe output from other
commands directly into gpg.

 WvV>> It's what you tell cmd.exe to do with what's in the clipboard...
 WvV>> Stop calling it the 'gpg editor'! It's not an editor. It's a command
 WvV>> line util that gets its input from "stdin" that's provided to it by
 WvV>> the shell (cmd.exe) it's running in.

 AA> OK, I get that.  But I launch gpg.exe, it runs and is "Waiting for
 AA> input". It does not fail. It sits there waiting for the message
 AA> content. Fine. Then, how do I finish that process?

By telling your terminal/shell it should finish close stdin. Which is done with
pressing ^D in bash on linux that I use.

 AA> If it expects all parameters/arguments at the command-line, then I am
 AA> surprised that it runs at all.  If using it without arguments makes not
 AA> sense then I would expect it to issue a warning and exit immediately.

See above.

 WvV>> I can have it do something interactively without using input or output
 WvV>> files. (But it's not a "live editor"! ;))

 AA> It behaves like a very basic editor.  Backspace works.  Insert works. IT
 AA> continues a "message line" until I press enter. Then, I can continue on
 AA> another line.

It's the shell (cmd on windows) that you are interacting with not gpg directly,
it just gets from stdin what your shell puts there.

 AA> OK. I started gpg with -->C:\gpg -sea -r wilfred

 AA> Then I got the key prompt like above.
 AA> Then I start typing a message.

 AA> But how do I tell the program I am done?

 AA> When I perform a ^d, it just sits there.

I don't know what the apropriate key is in the windows shell...

 AA> I don't know how to trigger the prompt for a passphrase.

That should be automatic (if gpg is configured/installed correctly)...

 WvV>> After the message about the passphrase, I get a seperate window to
 WvV>> enter my passphrase. And I typed a ^d, after my "How are you doing?"
 WvV>> line, to end my input (to the shell it's running in).

 AA> I guess I need to see someone doing it.

 AA> I know how to use gpg with pre-written message files, and produce
 AA> armoured output files.  But I want to understand why the live, type as
 AA> you go method does not work for me.

The windows shell is probably more limited than any of the linux shells. ;)

Bye, Wilfred.

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