I have text bits that I repeatedly insert to my documents.
I am looking for a clipboard manager.
I already tried a couple, but none of them worked for my purpose.
Here is the catch:
Those text segments that I want to paste from a clipboard manager have styles applied to them.
With some of the clipboard managers I’ve tried it works, the text is pasted on command with its character attributes style, but it always stops working after a computer reboot. → The text itself is still pasted properly, but without the style to it.
Any suggestions welcome.
(Very preferably a clipboard manager that allows to assign shortcuts to text clips.)
That is really a pity. I have just completed a major research on the subject, and could tell you a lot about it … but I have a mac. Good luck with your search.
Well, then “Clipy”. Looks a bit outdated, but the app is free, small, fast, offers a historie with shortcuts (paste), archives and the texts can be edited.
I found an “alternative to” webpage.
I am trying a couple.
But so far the challenge remains to find one that also keeps the background info, pasting it back with the style.
@AmberV
When pasting text from one Scrivener project to another, even after having quit Scrivener and launched it again, pasting also recalls the character attributes style of the snippet if the destination project has that style set.
Question: What is the format of the extra code that is responsible for that ?
And why is it lost on computer reboot, while the text itself remains available in the clipboard manager ?
If you already have the text, have you considered using this (actually useless) scratchpad? You can insert/extract everything formatted with drag & drop, at least with the mac.
I want to automate it (assign them each a shortcut), so that I don’t actually have to manually copy/paste my snippets over and over. (I am trying to get rid of the “navigate to, select, copy” part.)
I currently have all my snippets in a single document, in the project’s bookmarks. So where I take them from is not the problem. (No need for an extra project.)
And when I use a clipboard manager, many that I tried work.
As per my screenshot, they would paste the text in red, the snippet being of the correct style. (Yay). But it no longer works after reboot. I get result B from my screenshot.
So I’d have to redo my whole setup each time → no go.
Something related to RAM, obviously. Like part of the needed code gets wiped on reboot.
Thanks for explaining again, I think I get it now. Very strange that the extra (.rtf?) attributes are lost on reboot.
Not trying to send you down a coding rabbit hole, but–
In the event you can’t find a clipboard manager or other pre-built solution, have you ever used AutoHotKey? Theoretically you could use it to automate the drudgery repetitive parts of this.
I am currently testing that on ComfortKeys. (Somewhat equivalent to AHK on this regard, but with its own on-screen KB.)
The challenge is to have a document listing all the snippets, and automate a “reload” of it all to the clipboard, in the right places, so that the shortcuts still match.
I already gave up on reloading a list, as it seems random as to whether CKeys replaces the content of the cell associated with the shortcut, or creates an unassigned new one.
Here is what I am now trying (somewhat in the line of what you just proposed):
Automate the style selection, output the snippet as keystrokes, revert to no style.
So far so good…
It looks like there was a solution found, so this is just for the sake of extra info:
A clipboard event typically has a number of alternative buffers stored within it, which software can use to select from, like how pasting from the text editor into Synopsis doesn’t dump a bunch of raw RTF into the field. When you copy, a TXT variant is often made. There are also “private” buffers that programs can use to communicate with themselves, using data that typically wouldn’t be understood outside of the software, which is what you’re referring to here.
Clipboard data...
A tool like the open source CopyQ can show all clipboard data, such as Scrivener’s internal extended RTF markup with styled text info.
Whether those get saved by the clipboard manager long-term is probably a function of how it is designed, but given how these special buffers are meant for private use only, they are probably only kept in memory rather than whatever persistent storage the clipboard manager uses. I’ve seen some very simple ones drop all special properties once you copy something else, meaning historic stuff is plain-text only.
P.S. The scratchpad is only a surface deep Scrivener text field. As its intended design is to be a two-way tool that writes ordinary files to the disk, it is not going to be using Scrivener-only markup like inline annotations or styles. Indeed you can set the scratchpad to write plain-text .md files and then no formatting at all will convey.
Good luck with your search.
