quickClip is a versatile X-windows Clipboard. It grabs the selection immediately, so there is no need to start it and then paste the selection in. You will use it all the time. I have it bound to: o Icon on the fvwm GoodStuff launcher. o System Window pull down menu. o Alt+F1+q it is a great way to save notes and bits of text on the desktop. Many buttons/bindings to perform common tasks: o Append the X-selection o Select or Clear the quickClip contents o Print the contents o 2-page Enscript the contents o pass the contents thru a (any) filter o Save, Append to, or Load a file (which csh-like file completion) o Change the quickClip window title o Find strings in the contents o tcl/tk Text Widget features o Launch a new quickClip DEPENDENCIES Should run well on Unix. Will run on Windows, but will require some tweaking. With the X-windows selection the utility of quickClip seems to be diminished. Printing depends on the "lpr" and "enscript" commands, quickClip opens write pipes to them as well as the arbitrary filter action. Analogs to these may be found on non-Unix OS's. Save the trouble of frusting windows pipelines and save to a file then exec. INSTALLATION Unix: chmod 755 quickClip, put quickClip in a PATH dir. may have to put the path to wish in by hand in the script. Windows: rename quickClip quickClip.tcl. Or make a quickClip.bat file in PATH. Mac: untested ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ From the online help: quickClip v0.3 Copyright (c) 1994-1998 Karl J. Runge quickClip: an X-windows Selection Clipboard Usage: quickClip [-l] [-b ] [-|file] Description: ------------ quickClip is an X selection clipboard with many features. It is meant to be convenient: when invoked it will automatically grab the current X-selection and place it in its TextArea. This is in contrast to "xclipboard" where once started one must paste in the selection with the mouse. It is useful to bind the launching quickClip to easily executed keystrokes or mouse events so one can very quickly capture X-selections for later use. For example, one can bind it to a button press on a toolbar (e.g. GoodStuff in fvwm), or to "window-ops" popup menus, and/or mouseless, keystroke-only window-manager invocation, an editor macro, etc. Unlike "xclipboard's" multiple pages, all the selections are simply kept in a single TextArea. To have separate multiple selections start up additional "quickClip's". Also, when in Loop Mode simple buffers of each new selection are kept and delimited in the TextArea. Features: --------- Here are the main buttons: Append Append a selection to bottom of Clipboard TextArea. Looping mode Continuously updates selection. Printing lpr, enscript -2r, or arbitrary filter. Save To file, append to file, or to pipe cmd. Rename window Change wm title. Read Read in text from a file. Find Search fwd/bwd for patterns in the selection. Select All Quickly grab all of selection in TextArea. Clear Clean out the TextArea. Help This help. Quit Exit quickClip. Starting: --------- If started with no command line arguments, quickClip will attempt to capture the current X-selection (PRIMARY only, CUT_BUFFERS are currently not handled), and display it in its text widget (referred to here at the TextArea). If there is no current selection, the TextArea is initially empyt. If started with an argument "-" it reads all of its standard input and displays it in the TextArea. If a file name is given on the command line, the text from that file is displayed in the TextArea. If started with the "-l" flag quickClip immediately goes into "Looping" mode: it loops continuously looking for changes in the X-selection and scrolls the new selections in its TextArea. See "Looping" below. Starting with "-b " will limit the number of loop buffers kept to . Basic Bindings: --------------- Append current X-selection. Print dialog. Save dialog. Find dialog. Select all text in TextArea. Clear TextArea. This help. Quit. Quit. Appending: ---------- Click the "Append" button or press to append the current X-selection to the bottom of the TextArea. The TextArea is scrolled to the bottom to make the added text visible. Printing: --------- Clicking the "Print" button or pressing starts up a Print dialog. The current contents of the TextArea will be sent to various filters. You can type and arbitrary filter command in the EntryBox, either "|command" or just "command". Then click "Filter" or press . Click the "lpr" button to pass the Text to the line printer. Click the "Enscript" button to pass the Text to "enscript -2r". (two columns rotated output). Click the "X" button to terminate the Print dialog. Pressing when in the EntryBox (NOT TextArea) also terminates it. Saving: ------- Clicking the "Save" button or pressing starts up a Save dialog. The current contents of the TextArea will be saved. Type in the name of a file in the EntryBox. c-shell like file completion may be used: press to get a list of file/directory alternatives (Click the one you want), or press or to complete the filename until it is ambiguous. Then click the "Save" button to save to the filename in the EntryBox. Pressing has the same effect. The file will be overwritten; click the "Append" button to append to that filename. Click the "Etc..." button for even more actions: Enter a new window manager title name in the EntryBox and click "Title" to set the window title. Or Enter filename in the EntryBox and click the "Read" button to append the contents of that file to the TextArea. Click the "X" button to terminate the Save dialog.Pressing when in the EntryBox (NOT TextArea) also terminates it. Searching: ---------- Clicking the "Find" button or pressing starts up a Find dialog. The current contents of the TextArea can be searched. Type in the pattern to search for in the EntryBox. Then click the "Forward" button or press to search forward through the TextArea. Matches are highlighted in yellow. Pressing searches forward. Or click the "Back" button or press to search backward through the TextArea. Matches are highlighted in yellow. Click the "X" button to terminate the Find dialog. Pressing when in the EntryBox (NOT TextArea) also terminates it. Note that the cursor is usually at the bottom of the TextArea so it may be best to search backwards. Selecting: ---------- Click the "Select All" button or press to select all of the text in the TextArea. Press to deselect it all. Selecting other text in any application will also remove the selection. Clearing: ---------- Click the "Clear" button or press to remove all text from the TextArea. ?: -- Clicking the "?" button displays this help. Quitting: --------- Click the "Quit" button or press or to Looping: -------- If started with the "-l" flag, quickClip starts up in a loop watching for the X selection to change. Each time the selection changes, it is appended to the TextArea. The separate selections are delimited by lines beginning "---- buffer # -------", where # is the "buffer" number. You can toggle into or out of "Looping Mode" by pressing any of , , or or clicking button 3 (the right-most button). When in Looping Mode the "Append" button's label is changed to the string "Looping". You can click the "Looping" button to get out of Looping Mode. The "Select All" button is disabled in Looping Mode because you could get into a terrible loop (i.e. the automatically appended text changes the X-selection, it is appended, and so on...). In general be careful selecting text from the TextArea when Looping. It is safest to get out of Loop Mode before doing any selecting. You can cycle backward thru the buffers by pressing . To cycle forwards press . You can also use and , respectively if you want to. When in Looping Mode the buffers are highlighted in yellow as you cycle through them. When not in Looping Mode each one is exported to the X-selection as you cycle through them. Misc. Features: --------------- In the TextArea, if you click Mouse button 1 while holding down , this will spawn a new quickClip process that will grab the current X selection. Starting with "-L" will delete all windows and just scroll "Loop Mode" seleciton buffers to the standard output. Starting with "-S" will initially highlight and export the selection. TextArea Bindings: ------------------ Up a page Down a page Up 1/2 a page Down 1/2 a page Up a line Down a line Cursor up a line Cursor down a line Start a new quickClip Insert selection at mouse Insert selection at cursor Delete selected text Toggle LoopMode Cycle backward one buffer Cycle forward one buffer Quit in non-LoopMode (N.B. when two or more keypresses are noted, e.g. , it means you can press either one to get the action, not both in succession) EntryBox Bindings: ------------------ Clear EntryBox. Insert selection into EntryBox. In Print Dialog: Pass all text through filter in EntryBox. End Print dialog. In Save Dialog: Save all text to file in EntryBox. Append all to file in EntryBox. Insert | mailx -s "" into EntryBox. Set window title to text in EntryBox. and Filename Completion (expand non-ambiguous). Filename Completion (list of possibilities) (select with Mouse or press ) End Save dialog. In Save/Etc Dialog: Set window title to text in EntryBox. Read file in EntryBox, append to TextArea. (File Completion as under Save) End Save/Etc dialog. In Find Dialog: Search forward for match of string in EntryBox. Search backward for match of string in EntryBox. End Find dialog.