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The weight of the clipboard

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Re: The weight of the clipboard

#101

Post by TheSalarian »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #90
CyberShadow wrote: post #69

I'm working on a clipboard manager, because I'm not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS). - Non-text data (i…

A bit orthogonal, but here's my suggestion: In addition to: cut | copy | paste Add: swap It swaps the current selection with the contents of the clipboard (replacing the clipboard with the selection, replacing the section with the prior contents of the clipboard — a swap). It's a nerdy ask, if anything adds more complexity to the clipboard concept. But I have found myself having a need for this shortcut often. Maybe…

For what it's worth, I know I'd certainly use it.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#102

Post by myself248 »

CyberShadow wrote: post #69

I'm working on a clipboard manager, because I'm not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS). - Non-text data (i…

I have always wanted a "clipboard firewall", such that apps on List A can never copy and paste between apps on List B. Basically two separate clipboards.

If I want to move things between them, I should open the clipboard manager and manually move an individual item, or bridge the two clipboards for a specified time, after which they go back to being isolated.

Is that sensible/practical?

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#103

Post by myself248 »

cecilpl2 wrote: post #93
JKCalhoun wrote: post #91

I'm happy someone has vocalized this same nagging feeling I have had for all these years. I just wish it had been addressed instead in the form of haiku. Maybe someone can try. The other thing that has bothered me all these years: Head down and typing, Whoops, no text field selected. Where did the text go?

I have cut some text, Now a new feeling haunts me. I must paste it, MUST.

I'm sure the clipboard holds the text I want.

Into the app I confidently paste.

It's bold italic and a funky font!

Why does this always blow up in my face?

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#104

Post by PeterisP »

CyberShadow wrote: post #69

I'm working on a clipboard manager, because I'm not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS). - Non-text data (i…

> rich text (e.g. HTML) should be supported.

While there definitely are good use cases where rich text clipboard should be supported, for me personally a major use case requires eliminating rich text - where I'm frequently pasting some data from some web system into e.g. a word document and I want to explicitly paste just the text, because it really does not matter what styling the web page used for some ID. Word's "Paste Special"->"Unformatted text" is horribly inconvenient, so currently I just paste it in my text editor and re-copy it, ensuring that only the text remains in the clipboard.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#105

Post by PeterisP »

hunter-gatherer wrote: post #63
aargh_aargh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Good point, wondering the same thing. I'm considering starting using a password manager, but my bigest concern is that malware can capture the passwords by listening to clipboard. The model in my head on Windows from programming using WIN32 API two decades ago is that any application can read clipboard contents as often as it wants to. Assuming the malware does that in a tight loop, how can password managers be secur…

This is still a concern. I do malware analysis for a living and most windows malware these days that steal clipboard data simply hook the windows APIs and grab a copy of everything in there.

Wouldn't such malware also have the ability to inject itself into the password manager and read the secrets from its memory?

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#106

Post by throwaway0a5e »

yepthatsreality wrote: post #92
DecoPerson wrote: post #75

While writing & editing code, and only while doing that, I have a tic that looks insane to onlookers. The last comment I received was “Why the hell are you tapping the caps-lock key non-stop?” I don’t know why I do it. It helps me think, though. Maybe any of the keys on the keyboard would satisfy my cravings to tap a key repeatedly, but I unconsciously chose capslock because it’s mostly benign to press. Perhaps it’s…

The tapping is from anxiety. You’re defaulting to a common action. Some people chew their finger nails, some use a fidget spinner. If you want to stop, identify when you’re doing the habit and catch and control yourself, relax, and identify the anxiety.

Or it's just a habit.

Not everything needs to be the result of some implied mental health problem.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#107

Post by diffeomorphism »

diffeomorphism wrote: post #78
amelius wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting, I never looked into clipboard managers. I often have to copy X and Y coordinates from two fields to the same fields in another instance of the application. Is there an easy way to copy both values and only then switch to the other instance and paste them?

In Excel? Click on field X, press and hold ctrl and click on field Y to mark both fields, then just copy&paste should work. Otherwise this is up to the app. A generic clipboard has no concept of the content of X and Y being in different fields (because it has no clue what a "field" is). It just stores the content.

... otherwise clipboard managers work like a stack. So you can copy X, then copy Y, paste Y, pop the stack, paste X.

Or with primary selection: select X and press ctrl+c, select Y; ctrl+v to insert X, middle-click to insert Y.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#108

Post by CyberShadow »

myself248 wrote: post #102
CyberShadow wrote: post #69

I'm working on a clipboard manager, because I'm not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS). - Non-text data (i…

I have always wanted a "clipboard firewall", such that apps on List A can never copy and paste between apps on List B. Basically two separate clipboards. If I want to move things between them, I should open the clipboard manager and manually move an individual item, or bridge the two clipboards for a specified time, after which they go back to being isolated. Is that sensible/practical?

From a security perspective, I don't think it's possible to do with the standard OS APIs.

When an application makes data available in the clipboard, it's a free-for-all for every other application. The clipboard manager would have to race other applications to make a copy of the data, and then empty the OS clipboard.

APIs also may not allow making decisions based on which application requested the clipboard. It's possible to do in X11, but not Windows.

This goal could be achievable by intercepting the OS clipboard API. On X11, this can be done by MITM-ing the connection to the X server - https://github.com/CyberShadow/hax11 does this, and already has one clipboard-related security feature (disabling the selection mechanism). On Windows, the best bet is probably global DLL injection and API hooks, but applications can "opt out" by running as a different user or requesting a higher integrity level.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#109

Post by CyberShadow »

PeterisP wrote: post #104
CyberShadow wrote: post #69

I'm working on a clipboard manager, because I'm not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS). - Non-text data (i…

> rich text (e.g. HTML) should be supported. While there definitely are good use cases where rich text clipboard should be supported, for me personally a major use case requires eliminating rich text - where I'm frequently pasting some data from some web system into e.g. a word document and I want to explicitly paste just the text, because it really does not matter what styling the web page used for some ID. Word's "…

I don't have Microsoft Word, but most applications allow pasting just text using the shortcut Ctrl+Shift+V.

Edit: I see Microsoft Word doesn't natively have that shortcut, but there are two ways to "implement" it here: https://superuser.com/questions/988527/how-can-i-use-ctrl-sh...

Removing rich text formats is a good idea for a clipboard manager feature/plugin, though.

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