What is Clipboard.NET?
Clipboard.NET allows you to access items that you previously sent to the clipboard. Usually with the Clipboard; once you have copied something else, your original content is lost.. well not any more!
It is 100% keyboard accessible, (although you can access it via the UI if you prefer). Clicking a shortcut on the keyboard will bring up the clipboard viewer, pressing the up and down arrows allow you to scroll through all the available items, generating a preview for each one as you go. Once you have found the item you were looking for hitting the return key will paste the item as if it were the last item to go into the clipboard.
But I Use Office Clipboard?
Shame on you! Office Clipboard does not allow you to access old items from non-office programs, it also isn't available unless you have Office running. Take my word for it when I say that Clipboard.NET is a far better option.
Well what can I do with it?
Apart from being able to paste all your old clipboard items you can also manipulate them too. Say for instance you take a screenshot of your machine. Open up the clipboard viewer and right-click on the screenshot and you can save it straight to your desktop!
Also say another example you copy a block of text that contains a hyperlink. Find that item in the clipboard viewer and you can post the link straight to your del.icio.us account.
I am Technically Minded..
For the .net savvy amung you, there is an extensive plugin framework available to you via the
clipmon32.sdk.dll assembly. This means when you right click on an item in the clipboard your
plugin will appear here and when selected, your plugin is given the clipboard item which you
can do anything with. Your plugin can even have its own preferences and optionally its own
space in the preference dialog so users can control how your plugin behaves or appears to them.
Some of the plugins that get shipped with Clipboard.NET, that use this
framework are:
- Paste Text as HTML
- Paste File as Filename String
- Save Image to File (great for screenshots!)
An SDK will soon be available to download, which will contain documentation and samples for you to play with. In the meantime there is nothing stopping you from grabbing a copy of the source code and figuring it out for yourself!
I am not Technically Minded..
Not a programmer? Doesn't matter! You too can add your own plugins into Clipboard.NET!
You can use the WebPasteAsPlugin framework to create your own web-based plugins
like the ones listed here, which currently ship with Clipboard.NET:
- Send Link to del.icio.us
- Open Link in Browser
You can even customize the appearance of your plugin by specifying a URL to an image on the internet which will be displayed next to your plugin. All this without having to write a single line of code!
