Clipboard Panel Version 2.1 is now available

This panel can store any number of clipboard entries in a panel within Desktop Sidebar.

New Features in this version

• Stores clipboard items to disk - ensuring clipboard is maintained between DS sessions.
• Displays "<-- Empty -->" when there are no items on the clipboard

Other Features

• Can be configured to store any number of clipboard entries
• Ability to delete individual entries
• Ability to clear all entries
• Allows for a limited number of items to be shown, when autofit is on
• Supports all clipboard formats - this is BETA code and can be turned off in the panel properties dialog if it causes problems for you

This has only been tested with Build 69 of DS.

Installation:
Please download the DSPACKAGE file from the Extension Exchange here and double-click on it when DS is running.

Notes:
1. The panel is written in C# so you'll need the .NET Framework 1.1. This can be downloaded from the Microsoft Update site.

2. Because it's written in C# you'll see an increase in memory usage if it's the only .NET panel you have loaded.

3. Use Panel Properties to set available configuration.

4. This panel can use lots of memory if you configure it to store many clipboard items - especially bitmaps.

5. If clipboard items are being saved to disk then this may slow down the initial loading of DS.

Very cool.

Great job! Installation was pretty simple and the panel works perfectly for me.

As a possible suggestion for the future I think it would be cool if you could edit the clipboard items in their Details Window.

~acommonjo

Works great. You should also enable a function to clear the entries and empty the windows clipboard.

this is easily one of the most useful plugins . There are a couple of feature requests.

I would like to be able to delete items from the clipboard.
I would also like to be able to sort my clipbard items by date, name, or type(all text together, images together and files together).

also, clipboard is spelt wrong (cliipboard) in the help tab

The reason that most of the features requested aren't already in this panel is that the DS support for C# is a little problematic at the moment. So, I can't add menu items or a toolbar at present. When I can then it will be fairly easy to make the panel more usable. I have a couple of threads active at present hoping for some answers (from kdam).

Oh, and I fixed the spelling mistake - it will be in the next release (after it's fully tested of course )

KeithI

I also vote for the suggestions already mentioned.

This plugin is working great for me as well. Great job!!!

Coult69

That's great m8!!!

I'll definetely use that!!! For me it's more than enough

Thanks

the plugin doesnt seem to retain its contents after a reboot. do you suppose it would be possible to make the plugin remember the clipboard contents after a reboot?

No problems installing.

First impressions are great. Will try and put it through its paces today.

I agree with r1reddog, if you could add the ability to delete individual entries the add-in would be fine.

Nice! So far so good, as it stands now this is perfect for me. Just the ability to delet entries and it's 100% perfect.

Another small bug report. I don't know if this is a fixable thing or something that MS controls, but I noticed that your Clipboard Panel shows copied text from an Excel Spreadsheet as a Bitmap Image. It pastes correctly if it is the last item copied, but you cannot paste the text after choosing it from the list. I also noticed that in the Details Window it shows the text within a border.

~acommonjo

Excel (and Word to a lesser extent) is an absolute nightmare as far as the clipboard is concerned. Copying a cell from Excel puts the item on the clipboard in 18 different formats I check through the formats in the order bitmap,text,file - so the first thing it finds is the cell as a bitmap. There isn't much I can do about this at present I'm afraid

does your plugin save the files in the plugin itself?
is it possible to save files in a seperate folder, and put the link to the location of the file in your plugin. in other words, save clipbard items to a folder, and put the folder contents in ur plugin as a menu.

Is there a newer version of this in the works? This plugin has awesome potential.

Yes, there is a newer version in the works - but first I have to wait for kdam to sort out some issues with using .NET to write plugins.

Also, there seems to be a problem with the .NET clipboard library which I'm looking into. If I can sort out the problem with that then I should be able to support all clipboard formats.

I'm certainly looking at allowing entries to be deleted for the next release.

KeithI

You rock! Just wanted you to know you have an eager fan.

Make that two fans. Can't wait to see the new edition of the your panel.

~acommonjo

Including me, we have three fans!!! Can't wait for the next release!!!

Three fans

I can't take all of the adulation

Heh... well I like this one, too... but don't let it inflate your head too much...


(said by mattisking)

oh im a BIG fan of this plugin. totally rocks. id really love to see the delete option.

one more request/bug. the in-panel scrolling doesnt seem to work in this panel. can you look into it? if i make the panel size smaller then its contents, im not able to get the little scroll arrow when i mouse over the bottom of the panel like in the calendar panel.

Great plugin

Good plugin, and free...

Only problems capture full screen (capture screen key) and photoshop...

I have a strange bug with the clipboard panel...

I have extracted it (with the dsidebarpia.dll ) and I have done the regasm instruction, now when I start Sidebar it says always


Cannot load plugin ClipboardViewer.
IPlugin::Load returned: Unspecified error

Now the really strange thing is the panel is there (in the add panel list) I can add it and use it, it works very well... Why it says cannot load plugin if the plugin has been loaded and works very well ???

Is it possible that you have 2 copies of the DLL on your system? One in the DS folder and one elsewhere can cause a problem I think.

If you have the same panel installed in DS installation directory and in such directory: "c:\documents and settings\username\application data\desktop sidebar\plugins\" you'll probably have a problem.

i was working on a document today and i had to type some non-english characters like alpha and mu and nu and all that greek stuff. but when i copy text that contains non-english characters, the greek charaters just show up as blank on my clipboard plugin. if i select it and paste it, the non-english charaters dont get pasted. so basically the clipboard pluginn doesnt seem to work for non-english charaters.

can this be fixed. is it an issue with the plugin or the whole of DS?

this is one of my alltime favorite plugins and it would be even more awesome if it could support symbols and other characters.

I haven't tried non-English characters so I don't know where the problem lies - but I will certainly look into it.

I don't have a non-English version of Windows so some things are hard for me to test. However, when I copy some of the Hebrew text from this thread and paste it directly into MS Word I just get a series of squares. But when I paste it into here (אפשר ככה לדבר אחד עם השני ואף אחד לא ידע) it seems to work fine. (and as I have no idea what that Hebrew means I take no responsibility for it ).

If someone could explain to me how this works then perhaps I may be able to solve the problem.

You have to have Hebrew fonts in order for this to work.

By the way-Translation of the Hebrew text you refered to:
אפשר ככה לדבר אחד עם השני ואף אחד לא ידע
is
you can talk this way one with another and no one will know

DS had some problems before with characters from different languages.you should check if this characters works with another panels.

you dont have to have a non english version of windows to try this out...

open a word document. set the font from whatever it is to symbol

and type something

copy it and see if it appears on clipboard viewer.

i am not asking for foreign script support

but i am only asking for support for symbols and other characters that are normally used for example in a scientific document.

btw... i tried to copy and paste these symbols into this page and even that is not working.. i get a series of boxes...

Can you see it in the Notes Editor panel?

nope

So it is probably not supported by DS.Put a mesage in the Bugs forum.

I (think) I understand why it doesn't display correctly in the panel and the details window - Both the panel and the details window are using a font that is different from the font that you are using, and therefore DS does its best to display the character in the font it is using.

However, this shouldn't affect the copy/paste functionality of the clipboard viewer as it is storing the "object" and not just the string I will have to look into this further.

[EDIT] It DOES affect the copy/paste functionality in the same way. There is a problem with the .NET clipboard library that I'm looking into. Unless I can solve the problem with that then I can't solve this problem either.

it does affect the copy-paste function...

even if it is displayed incorrectly or wrongly, i wouldnt be worried if it pasted properly. only the last copied text pastes properly. if the text was copied before that and placed in the clipboard plugin, then the non regular characters dont paste correctly when i click on it and try to paste it.

i agree its an issue with the font... but then why is it not pasting properly..

edit: thanks... i notice you saw the same thing too. hope you are able to resolve this issue.

Maybe you should try to change the font that your skin is using and then it will work for you.

that would mess up the regular characters then.

it should be possible because the office clipboard for example is able to handle characters from multiple fonts, even non standard one, and retain them and paste them correctly.

OK.The notepad does it too,I think.So probably,as KeithI said,it is a problem with the font.The panel should let you choose which font you want to use,maybe.

Basically I agree with you stuffedtiger79. However, you will notice that the office clipboard doesn't attempt to display the items it holds - which makes things easier. And also, because MS can do it doesn't mean that it is easy for the rest of us who don't know what is going on underneath

sometimes, sentences i copy have multiple fonts in them. actually thats when i noticed the problem in the first place. i had a sentence in which some words were in ariel and other were in symbol. all the characters from the smbol font didnt copy or display correctly. the other ariel characters worked fine....

i am not sure about old office versions, but 2003 has a clipboard plane where items copied to clipboard are displayed and you can click on wat you want to paste.

interestingly enough, when i used the same symbols and copied it, they appeared as boxes in the clipboard place in office too... they didnt appear blank like in DS though, so there is something there.

when i pasted it, it pasted correctly even though it was not displayed correctly in the panel.

because the clipboard is in one font, it is having trouble displaying multiple fonts. but the corect charaters are stored in memory and paste fine in office 2003.

So, to summarise:

There isn't much I can do about the display characters but the copy/paste should work.

I'll see what I can do (assuming I can sort out the .NET clipboard problem I have)

I wrote some text with the symbols font in a text editor and copied it.The clipboard panel showed me letters in English instead of in Greek.I think that it is because the panel uses 1 font-not the symbols font.If the panel showed the symbol font or if it had multi font support it would do it fine.However,as far as I know,in DS you can use only one font for each row which makes it harder.

when you tried to paste it back into the text editor, did i paste properly.

dont try the latest string you copied. try to paste a string you copied previously, that has multiple fonts. it probablywont work.

i think that keith has nailed the problem down. i hope now that he has an understanding of it, he will be able to resolve it.

fingers crossed...

It pastes properly to the editor.Lets hope that KeithI will be able to fix it.

Is there a clear clipboard function, or clear the list of stored clipboard entries?? Has there been a newer version of this panel recently?