The weight of the clipboard

While writing &amp; 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?”<p>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 toggling of the capslock state that tickles my neurons? I don’t know!<p>Similarly, I felt very strongly about the contents of my clipboard while doing any input on a real keyboard , until I discovered IntelliJ’s clipboard history feature (Ctrl+Shift+V) and more broadly Window’s terrible but sufficiently functional version (Win+V). The emotions I felt about clipboard contents were intense. I had to have something small, succinct, and simple in my clipboard like a single word, so that I could spam Ctrl+V and Ctrl+Z constantly without consequence, just like my capslock tic.<p>I do wonder if my fidgeting helped me learn editor shortcuts, because while I’m never quick enough to meet my own editing-speed goals, my editor fu earned me the title of “Text Wizard” at one company. It’s fun blowing peoples’ minds by smoothly executing a column-based edit on thousands of lines of data, saving them potentially hours of manual editing.<p>Aside: A coworker once called a one-line regex a “dark incantation,” and a forty-line regex I wrote on someone else’s’ PC earned the title of “Cthulhu’s Lullaby.” Good text editing skills is a superpower in our age (for many but obviously not all occupations).

I&#x27;m working on a clipboard manager, because I&#x27;m not happy with any of the ones currently available. Here are my design goals:<p>- The system should be able to efficiently store, manipulate, and search an unlimited number of clipboard entries with reasonable performance.<p>- The software should be cross-platform, and should have implementations for major desktop platforms (Windows, X11, Wayland, macOS).<p>- Non-text data (images) and rich text (e.g. HTML) should be supported.<p>- Clipboard history can be shared across instances using a network connection.<p>- Instances may temporarily go offline, and sync up with other instances once a connection is re-established.<p>- - All functionality should continue to be available when offline (other than sync).<p>- Deletions must be propagated across instances.<p>- Deleted clips must not be trivially recoverable.<p>- Deleted clips must be deleted everywhere, including any copies in OS clipboards.<p>- Sync should be incremental (and otherwise generally efficient).<p>- When connected, actions should propagate across instances in real time (instantly, as opposed to polling, and with no unnecessary roundtrips).<p>- Relaying should be supported (in a `A &lt;-&gt; B &lt;-&gt; C` scheme, A should be able to see C&#x27;s actions).<p>- Network topology cycles should not result in a feedback loop.<p>- It should be safe and easy to simply copy the database file to another host, &quot;pre-seeding&quot; the clipboard history.<p>- Support &quot;portable installs&quot; (carrying the software, configuration, and database on portable storage).<p>- It should be easy to write interoperable implementations of bridges&#x2F;clients in most programming languages.<p>- Non-GUI functionality should be separated (or separatable) from GUI functionality, so that a GUI toolkit doesn&#x27;t need to be loaded at all times.<p>Any suggestions?

To all of you who stopped worrying thanks to a clipboard manager, how do you handle sensitive contents in your clipboard?<p>For example, I routinely copy-paste my passwords from KeePass, and I have disabled all clipboard management to avoid copies of my passwords lingering around.

I stopped worrying about it when I installed the Ditto clipboard Manager[0]. It keeps everything, so don&#x27;t have to keep track of what I copied in my short term memory. I offloaded that task to the computer. Turns out they&#x27;re good at that kind of thing.<p>I wrote about it back in 2016 on my very ugly website: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tidbitsfortechs.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;clipboard-manager&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.tidbitsfortechs.com&#x2F;2016&#x2F;02&#x2F;clipboard-manager&#x2F;</a><p>[0]<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ditto-cp.sourceforge.io&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ditto-cp.sourceforge.io&#x2F;</a>

I have a tangentially related issue. It&#x27;s completely irrational, but I can&#x27;t shake it. Sometimes when writing code, I need to add a block that looks a lot like an existing one, so I&#x27;ll copy it and paste just below. (Yes, I know, DRY. Sue me :)<p>The irrational part comes in when it&#x27;s time for me to make the tweaks. Maybe I&#x27;m working on a yaml config file, and I need to specify two objects that are mostly the same, with minor changes to one of them.<p>I&#x27;ll make sure I&#x27;m working on &quot;the copy&quot;, and not &quot;the original&quot;. So, let&#x27;s say I start with this:<p><pre><code> - author: E. Hemingway title: The Old Man and the Sea medium: hardcover edition: 1 published: 1952 </code></pre> And the project manager says I need to add the second edition paperback to the list. I&#x27;ll find that block, copy the whole thing, and *then make sure I don&#x27;t disturb the &quot;original&quot;:<p><pre><code> - author: E. Hemingway title: The Old Man and the Sea medium: hardcover edition: 1 published: 1952 - author: E. Hemingway title: The Old Man and the Sea medium: trade edition: 2 published: 1953 </code></pre> Basically, I&#x27;ve internalized that my bits have a color[1].<p>[1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ansuz.sooke.bc.ca&#x2F;entry&#x2F;23" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;ansuz.sooke.bc.ca&#x2F;entry&#x2F;23</a>

Nice little piece of writing - thanks for sharing.<p>One of the key things I can&#x27;t go without now in my workflow is a clipboard manager.<p>I use Rofi (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;davatorium&#x2F;rofi" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;davatorium&#x2F;rofi</a>) in combination with Greenclip (<a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;erebe&#x2F;greenclip" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;github.com&#x2F;erebe&#x2F;greenclip</a>) and it&#x27;s a Godsend.<p>I have a custom keybinding (super key + c) that will bring up the Rofi menu to fuzzy search through previously copied items or pinned items. Super handy when writing code, finding old snippets, etc.<p>Can&#x27;t recommend it enough.

I think it&#x27;s because when you copy something to clipboard you are also putting a note in your short term memory about it. Our short term memory isn&#x27;t very good, with only a few slots for storage. A way around this could be for a mini-image of the contents of the clipboard to be displayed in a corner of the screen somewhere.

Unify your vim clipboard with the system clipboard, they said. The integration is wonderful, they said.<p>Well:<p>1&#x2F; copy URL from browser<p>2&#x2F; alt tab to vim notes<p>3&#x2F; delete old URL from notes<p>4&#x2F; paste new URL <i>but get the old URL instead?!</i><p>How do I do the FORTH equivalent of swapping the two items on the top of the stack (and have a stack in the first place)? :)

It&#x27;s rare to find people reifying these subtle subjective aspects of UI design so clearly. <i>Transience</i> is a deep problem in UI design. Everything from accidentally kicking out the cord and losing your (unsaved) work, to accidentally copying a selection and clobbering the previous contents of the clipboard (that you still also want to paste again too.) Modal dialogs, modes in general, un-undoable changes of all kinds. It&#x27;s kind of like our UIs are video games in the sense that they are harder to use than they should be. Video games have to have some sort of challenge or they get boring, eh?

I mostly freed myself from that weight with a clipboard manager. LaunchBar[0] on macOS and CopyQ[1] everywhere else. It’s nice to know I can Cut1&#x2F;Cut2&#x2F;Cut3, then Paste2&#x2F;Paste1&#x2F;Paste3 to my heart’s content with no worries of overwriting the contents of the clipboard forever.<p>It’s one capability I sometimes miss on my i(Pad)OS devices.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;obdev.at&#x2F;products&#x2F;launchbar&#x2F;index.html" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;obdev.at&#x2F;products&#x2F;launchbar&#x2F;index.html</a> [1] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hluk.github.io&#x2F;CopyQ&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;hluk.github.io&#x2F;CopyQ&#x2F;</a>

I&#x27;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.<p>The other thing that has bothered me all these years:<p>Head down and typing,<p>Whoops, no text field selected.<p>Where did the text go?

I cannot relate to the article. If I cut files and do nothing - they are not deleted from the origin. If I cut text - texts are versioned and backed up with git or similar alternative.<p>Even if I would lose something, it wouldn&#x27;t take too much time to restore it. If its a password - 99% of them can be recovered

I&#x27;ve overwritten my clipboard multiple times by accident, so I think that weight is the fear of losing what I copied. To be honest, the clipboard bears the weight of so much productivity, even though by default, its functionality is pretty limited. It&#x27;s the poor man&#x27;s IPC, after all.

The ux on this small clipboard is terrible.

My heaviest clipboard is when I exit GIMP and it copies the gigabyte image I had in its clipboard to the system clipboard as a PNG. :)

Wow, this is an amazing description of the feeling I always felt but never explicitly verbalized.

On MacOS I find Paste works really well.<p>It tracks your last N items, shows previews of images, has search, clean UI, does not store items from 1Password (ignored app list is editable)<p>Ticks all the boxes<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pasteapp.io" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;pasteapp.io</a>

&gt; It happens when I cut something with ctrl + X.<p>Not to me, because in the software I use the thing gets actually deleted once I paste it somewhere else, not before. It&#x27;s more like tagging the thing(s) for moving to a location to be disclosed later.

Under X, the clipboard is especially heavy: you have two ways to copy and paste (Ctrl+c&#x2F;v versus selection and middle mouse button), and Ctrl+v doesn&#x27;t work in terminals. It&#x27;s confusing.

I am using Maccy[0] for a while and I believe this app should be default feature in the all operating systems.<p>[0] <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maccy.app&#x2F;" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;maccy.app&#x2F;</a>

I have exactly this feeling and still paste somewhere or copy garbage to get rid of it though for macOS i use yippy as clipboard manager and it improved the feeling of being in control a lot. similar ticks exist for undo history and saving as well as browser navigation. I wonder if this is something normal people experience or if it is connected to my strong adhd.

I developed a bad habit of not wanting anything in my clipboard after I&#x27;ve used it, so I usually copy the letter `e` (or something similarly unimportant). It&#x27;s almost like an OCD at this point (in the browser, CTRL + L, &#x27;e&#x27;, backspace, CTRL + A, CTRL + C, esc). One of my new-year&#x27;s resolutions is literally to stop doing this silliness.

Does anyone have a solution to sync clipboards across: 1. The system (XServer) 2. A terminal text editor (Kakoune) 3. The same text editor on another system over ssh<p>I currently have 1 &amp; 2 sync&#x27;d ok, but 3 is only one-way. I use the OSC 52 escape sequence (supported by my terminal) to sync a copy on 3 to 1. But I have not figured out how to sync from 1 to 3.

like all external brains, the clipboard forces you to confront &#x27;thinking without knowing&#x27;, which can be dissonant and slow, and requires browse and search strategies rather than leaping to conclusions.<p>john crowley&#x27;s little big is sort of about this

I feel this because I know I could lose what I copied. It&#x27;s the knowledge that I haven&#x27;t completed some action and it&#x27;s in an unsafe state.

There are days I wish the clipboard was skeuomorphic with semi infinite undo, and a meta state of from where pasted into what.

I had the same weight feeling for years until I discovered clipboard management software. It changed everything

Is there a clipboard manager with a simple command line interface or perhaps a Python integration?

sounds like &quot;cognitive load&quot;<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cognitive_load" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.m.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Cognitive_load</a>

With a kill ring you can ignore this weight. Problem?

people worrying about their clipboard contents vs. malware capturing keystrokes is baffling.<p>you may as well keep your passwords in a plaintext file.

This is a lovely nugget of thought<p>If anything, replies here should suggest the missing word

doesnt windows have a clipboard manager built in?

Insightful.<p>I would say it&#x27;s the Zeigarnik effect<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Zeigarnik_effect" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Zeigarnik_effect</a><p>I find Clipboard managers remove this. Since putting it into the queue is a whole task.