The other mysteriously missing should-be-standard clipboard feature is “Paste as unformatted text” (which some apps support through “paste special”, but not all). I’ve come to rely on PureText to provide this feature, and I use it often.
Just had a look at the Ditto site – hadn’t done that in a while. There’ve been updates! Most recent:
Version 3.15.4.0
On 01-16-08
Yay!
Great post, good point… Never thought about the clipboard in that way before… very insightful.
thanks
The other mysteriously missing should-be-standard clipboard feature is “Paste as unformatted text”
Ditto does this. Pop its list (default key combo is Control ` – becomes very natural to use) and when the desired item is highlighted (most recent by default, and older can be reached quicly by keyboard – no mouse necessary), press Shift-Enter to get a plain text version.
Note, too, that Ditto has a very convenient search feature. Just start typing, and the list is immediately reduced to items containing what you’ve typed. This includes basic wildcarding.
At this point, I guess I should say that I have NO affiliation with Ditto. But I use it day in and day out, and I’d hate to be without it.
I’ve been using ClipX for ages. It also lets you install a Stickies plug-in, which lets you create clipboard text that will “stick” forever. When you press your ClipX paste shortcut (which can be changed from CTRL+SHIFT+V), it shows the sticky items at the bottom of the list with alphabetic shortcuts (A, B, …). (Unfortunately, there’s a bug where often the alphabetic shortcuts don’t work and you have to manually select the item. But it’s still a time-saver.)
i see your points, I haven’t used ClipX, but from your article the only thing I would change would be to still utilze some form of key combo that pastes the lastest thing on the clipboard “stack” instead of having to select from a menu, because I am more often than not just moving something from one place to another quickly and dont need to choose from my last 10 copies
I’m sure Microsoft considered including this extra feature with Windows, but didn’t want to get sued over it like they did with Internet Explorer, Windows Media Player, etc… If notepad, paint, and calculator weren’t also so primitive they would get sued over those as well.
What’s scary about Microsoft is that they’ve known for YEARS that paste is the most used function yet it handles horribly in all of the Microsoft products I’ve used.
“Want me to paste this text in, even though it clearly doesn’t have ANY resemblance to the rest of the file in terms of its style? Noooo problem!”
“So you want me to paste this image in, eh? Howabout I just put it, umm, wherever I want! Sounds good to me!”
Try ClipBoard Diary utility.
It maintains a history of each and every thing you have copied into clipboard starting from the time you install the software
Windows Mobile supports copy/paste, of course. This is why many reviewers are missing it from the iPhone
If it’s Mobile Pro (which has a touch-screen), hold the stylus down for a second to get the context menu for copy/paste…
p.s.: why would IE allow selecting text if you couldn’t copy/paste…
btw, multiple clipboard is the first thing I disable in Office. No one needs this except engineer used to programmer editors. People prefer using a small set of simple tools, or repeating simple tasks, to do what they need.
What I don’t understand is: Why force your left hand in the awkward position for ctrl+c and it’s relatives?
It just exists that way because Macs already had command+c. DOS had (and all the versions of Windows I tried still have) a much better keyboard combination for copy/paste (ctrl+insert and shift+insert) that doesn’t hurt your hand. Not even after threehundredthousandeightmillionandtwentysix successive copies and pastes.
P.S. 1 : I agree with the folks saying we don’t need fancy multi clipboards making a simple operation less simple, but it’s a good thing for power users that we have the choice.
P.S. 2: For Visual Studio copying anything while there’s no selection? that’s just a really dumb exception to the way the clipboard works, you copy the selection. it makes no sense whatsoever to copy anything if it’s not selected! The option may make life easier for some but someone needs to be severly cut on his/her bonus for making it the default setting to copy an the current line when there’s no selection.
A friend of mine made a stack clipboard called stackboard.
I cannot live without it now!
double CTRL+C will open the url to the browser if it’s an url (sooo useful)
ALT-Z open the stack clipboard window to switch to an old clipboard
If you want to see it, it’s free, no install:
On OS X I use PTHPasteboard. http://pth.com/products/pthpasteboard/ I have Command-Alt-Shift-V mapped to bring up the clipboard window, which then allows 0-9 keys to paste any of the past 10 items in. Holding “Command” down when hitting the number (ex, Cmd-Alt-Shift-V, Cmd-2) will paste the given item in plain text instead of formatted, which is an absolute KILLER feature (pasting formatted text didn’t seem to bother me as much on Windows; I’m not sure why).
I paid for the Pro version, which adds in keyboard syncing across the network. This is a real workflow-changer.
IMHO, well worth the money (free if you don’t want network syncing and user-defined on-the-fly text filter).
Doesn’t persist clippings across reboots, but honestly I can’t see a reason for such a thing. If I want my clipboard persisted across reboots, I’ll past the clipping into a Stickie or TextEdit document before rebooting! I certainly wouldn’t want this as a matter of course.
For those on OS X, iSnip (http://www.davedelong.com/isnip2/) provides functionality similar to ClipX, though I believe it only handles text.
PowerPro has been having clipboard history (and many other clipboard functions) for ages.
Regarding PDA, Palm always had copy-paste. It’s so basic and so primitive, can’t imagine there exist devices without it.
Wow, Kris - I must have banana hands…
or at least abnormally large hands for a female…ctrl + c and ctrl + v don’t hurt me at all…
Of COURSE I can’t use less than and greater than in comments…duh.
That’s: “or at least abnormally large hands for a female… ctrl +c and ctrl + v don’t hurt me at all…”
I actually just used both when copying from my earlier comment and pasting into this one.
This has been part of the X Windows System for decades. There’s a horrible discoverability issue around it but recent developments (like Klipper, already mentioned) have improved that situation.
Good functions of this small app.
I would apply your ‘Don’t make me think!’ argument. You are taking a simple concept and making it complicated. Now I need to choose which item I want pasted (ok, not really, since the Ctrl-C/Ctrl-V still work as expected; you have another key combo to use to select). Does it allow you to select what to paste if you use the Paste menu option? Can I set it up to be a round-robin (FIFO) instead of a stack (FILO)? Can it maintain formats for Notepad or Paint?
As mentioned, Microsoft put into Word. I thought it was a good idea, but as I think about it now I fell very quickly back into the habit of thinking that the clipboard only held one item, and almost never used it. It’s not something that would be used.
Off topic, Excel’s copy/paste drives me nuts.