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The weight of the clipboard

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Re: The weight of the clipboard

#131

Post by hu3 »

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…

SQLite seems like a great choice of storage since it fills these requirements:

- The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance.

- All functionality should continue to be available when offline (other than sync).

- The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS).

- It should be safe and easy to simply copy the database file to another host, "pre-seeding" the clipboard history.

- It should be easy to write interoperable implementations of bridges/clients in most programming languages.

- Non-GUI functionality should be separated (or separatable) from GUI functionality, so that a GUI toolkit doesn't need to be loaded at all times.

But I'm not sure how to do this in SQLite as it probably does not fill deleted records with zero bits (but you could do that in your application):

- Deleted clips must not be trivially recoverable.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#132

Post by CyberShadow »

hu3 wrote: post #131
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…

SQLite seems like a great choice of storage since it fills these requirements: - The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance. - All functionality should continue to be available when offline (other than sync). - The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11…

Yes, I'm already using SQLite! It's great. Ditto uses it too.

To make SQLite zero-out deleted pages, issue "PRAGMA secure_delete = on".

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#133

Post by slickdork »

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…

This is something I would love, but also wouldn't use unless it had end to end encryption.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#134

Post by MiddleEndian »

mhb wrote: post #96
geocrasher wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Last I checked, it wasn't as good as Ditto. Plus, Ditto is burned into my workflow now, just as much as AutoHotKey is :)

What makes Ditto better?

The Windows clipboard manager doesn't support search. Ditto does. As soon as you open it you can just type a subset of some thing you recall copying the other day and it will immediately filter to that entry (or those entries). Biggest reason.

Ditto also rearranges the items so the last pasted is at the top rather than the last copied. This is also helpful because if I'm pasting something regularly, it's nice for it to be at or near the top.

You can configure how much history you want Ditto to store, by days or number of entries.

The Ditto clipboard entries are not as visually bulky as the Windows clipboard history entries.

The Ditto window can be resized, the Windows clipboard manager cannot be.

Those are the main reasons for me. Ditto also has a bunch of more advanced features but I've never used them.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#135

Post by sundarurfriend »

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?

Control-X some text

Burden of summer's first ant

Paste it, light once more.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#136

Post by still_grokking »

CyberShadow wrote: post #95
still_grokking wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like a sync plugin for CopyQ. https://hluk.github.io/CopyQ/ If I would guess, I would assume there is already one somewhere. If there isn't maybe just using Syncthing would be enough? https://syncthing.net/

I'm using CopyQ (and SyncThing) right now. Its design limits the number of entries, and sync doesn't work very well.

I hope you're going to build only a sync plugin like suggested and not a whole clipboard manager.

Nobody needs yet another clipboard manager as there is almost a perfect one out there. Which can be extended by plugins! (I don't think it's a valid approach to start a new project because some project doing most of the wanted stuff isn't "perfect". The result is almost always "yet another 80% solution").

The "limited" number of entries is not an issue, imho. You can set it to x-thousand entries if you like. (One thousand entries are enough for more than two weeks of history for me. A clipboard is not a means of permanent data storage at all so this is fine; even one can have something akin to permanent entries by just using tabs in CopyQ).

Implementing in CopyQ some of the suggestions mentioned here would be great though!

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#137

Post by CyberShadow »

still_grokking wrote: post #136
CyberShadow wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm using CopyQ (and SyncThing) right now. Its design limits the number of entries, and sync doesn't work very well.

I hope you're going to build only a sync plugin like suggested and not a whole clipboard manager. Nobody needs yet another clipboard manager as there is almost a perfect one out there. Which can be extended by plugins! (I don't think it's a valid approach to start a new project because some project doing most of the wanted stuff isn't "perfect". The result is almost always "yet another 80% solution"). The "limited" n…

I don't think a sync plugin would work. Entire parts of CopyQ's architecture would need to be redesigned, which would affect the rest of its ecosystem.

You can read the issue I filed in CopyQ's repository back when I switched to Linux and had to stop using Ditto for the justifications of infinite history: https://github.com/hluk/CopyQ/issues/510

CopyQ is also bound to use Qt's clipboard implementation, which provides the common subset of Qt's supported platforms, with all the consequent limitations. See the other issues I filed for details.

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#138

Post by dirtyid »

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…

hot keys for different clip boards

clip boards for different apps

regex to process entries

Re: The weight of the clipboard

#139

Post by johnchristopher »

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.

I read once some intelligent people still have some process cycles left when working out code and it's uneasing to them so their brains automatically adds another soothing activities to fill the void. For one of my coworker it was either whistling, feet tapping or pen clicking. To the point that another coworker regularly stand up from his chair, walked to him and put a spongy stress ball in his hands. Without saying a word, was funny the first time :D.
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