Clip Library Enhancements (Gathered)

[mo]

Suggest that others with Clip Library enhancements also post to this thread to unify the thinking:

1. I think the problem of toggling Clip Libraries could be solved by allowing multiple clip libraries and undocking the window. ?Building in a feature to tile multiple libraries when open?

2. Undocked, the Clip Library would make an excellent stand alone app if it could be made always to paste to the active document in any application that accepted input.

3. For many reasons it would be very valuable to be able to paste from the Clip Library into the Search and Search and Replace dialogs. This would eliminate the limitations placed on the current memory of this tool. Some Regular Expressions I have used over and over for years. I think the Search and Replace memory should be retained so that there is a dual mode possible: recent and temporary searches and searches likely to be used repeatedly over time.

Good Word: I think the Clip Library is the single most outstanding feature of TextPad; it has saved me thousands of hours of work.

[MudGuard]

1. what problem?

2. the active document? I can have many applications open which have an active document. Which one would you paste to? No, you can't use the active application - as the active application would be the clip library at that moment...

3. right-click on clip library entry, choose copy - or, if entry is selected, press Ctrl-C

[mo]

First of all thank you for waking me up from the box in which I had placed the Clip Library...it never occured to me that copy and save would work there like everywhere else!

To paste into the search box I was doubleclicking into my document and cutting it from the document and pasting it into the search box.

But even though now I can see that I can copy and paste into external documents, the idea isn't as interesting that way as if a clip could just be double clicked and inserted where the cursor was located in say the previous document...however this problem of the active window is solved by TextPad now so that we can double-click to insert.

The toggling "problem" is when you (ok, I) need to use two or more clip libraries when working on one file. It would be much more convenient if both of them could be open (undocked, floating around the perifery), rather than having to click on the list, select the library, scroll down to the clip needed, double click the clip.

[dove]

I would go with mo on this one. The feature i find most useful is the clip history. Is there a way I can save this clip history or build up my own clip history. For example having separate javascript, php, asp and miscellaneous clip histories would be most useful. It could act as a code repository of those lines that I use over and over but are hard to remember off hand. Regular expressions would fall into this category too. Or am i just missing another feature within tp that does this already?

Or should i just build my own clip libraries? I guess what i am asking for is there a GUI for building libraries quickly from within textpad or should i just accumulate my snippets and then build the .tcl file myself? I am beginning to feel that I am answering this question myself, going against my motto, but will leave here as part of the forum anyhoot in case someone has hit on a similar idea.

[mo]

There is another thread here on how to do this (I think MudGuard supplied the solution there too):

You click on the Clip Libraries drop down list and select New
Then you can copy and past clips you want to save to that.
You can as pointed out above, copy and paste clips from other libraries, or if you open and edit one you can select the whole thing.

[dove]

Thanks mo, that covers my request. I should really have figured that one out.

I am beginning to realise more and more how powerful this innocent looking editor is. Do you know anything about what is going to be in Version 5 and when it is due?

[mo]

Here is the idea of a stand-alone clip library...unfortunately for Mac only:

http://inventive.us/iClip/

[mo]

Hello again,

This came up on another board and is just the trick. It's called Yankee Clipper and it is a very versatile sort of clip library application which will do things like allow you to store (both permanently and like the Clip History, with a limit of 200 items) clips, but not only text...images, urls too.

http://www.yankee-clipper.net/

Oh yeah...free.