node-clip

Node.js Clipboard Manager

A clipboard manager that simplifies the multiple implementations of different systems or services to one unified API.

Development - Alpha phase

This is an early development version. It is not released yet and has to undergo testing first.

Installation

npm i --save node-clip

Usage

var clip = require("node-clip")();

All available exports of the main module are as following (the exports object itself is an alias for get):

Property	Type	Description
get	`[Clipboard] Function([String	String[]
use	`Function(String	Object)`
noCache	`[Clipboard] Function([String	String[]

Instances of the Clipboard class provide the following properties:

Property	Type	Description
name	String	Identifier of the system or clipboard API in use.
clipboards	String[]	Array of available clipboard identifications that can be used for read, write and clear.
isDetected	Boolean	Whether the clipboard system in use has been detected on the platform. If this is not the case, the platform is not supported by node-clip.
read	Function(String clipboard, callback)	Calls callback with the content read from the clipboard or null if the clipboard is not supported.
write	Function(String clipboard, String value, callback)	Writes the given value to the clipboard and calls callback with true; false if the clipboard is not supported.
clear	Function(String clipboard, callback)	Clears the clipboard and calls callback with true; false if the clipboard is not supported.
readAll	Function(callback)	Calls callback with the contents read from all available clipboards.
writeAll	`Function(String	String[]
clearAll	Function(callback)	Clears all available clipboards.
readPrimary, readSecondary, readTertiary	Function(callback)	Calls callback with the content read from the respective clipboard or null if the clipboard is not supported.
writePrimary, writeSecondary, writeTertiary	Function(String value, callback)	Writes the given value to the respective clipboard and calls callback with true; false if the clipboard is not supported.
clearPrimary, clearSecondary, clearTertiary	Function(callback)	Clears the respective clipboard and calls callback with true; false if the clipboard is not supported.
HAS_PRIMARY, HAS_SECONDARY, HAS_TERTIARY	Boolean	Flags to determine whether the respective clipboards are available on the platform.

It is not recommended to use the clipboards, read, write and clear properties since those are defined platform-dependent. Use those only when specific access is needed. The Primary, Secondary and Tertiary clipboards are defined with best efforts of the developer to provide a platform-independent API. Keep in mind however that not all of them are available for each system.

For the X-Server within GNU/Linux the definition is as following (according to ICCCM):

• Primary: The CLIPBOARD Selection; Usually available via Ctrl+C, etc.
• Secondary: The PRIMARY Selection; Usually copied by text-selection and pasted by middle-click or Shift+Insert.
• Tertiary: The SECONDARY Selection.

All callbacks are called asynchronously, following the node.js convention callback(error, value).

Support

This package supports the following systems/services:

• Windows native clipboard (clip and cscript with VBScript)
• Darwin OS X clipboard (pbcopy and pbpaste)
• xclip

Additional platforms may be supported via plugins.