Hi!
Linux has two clipboard buffers: primary for mouse selection and clipboard for Ctrl+C / Ctrl+V.
But sometimes that's not enough and you want to keep some text around to paste later (like clipboard registers in Vim, but system-wide).
We can make this possible with CopyQ clipboard manager, which allows us to have multiple tabs for our copied data.
DISCLAIMER
- I’m talking about text only, other media types won’t work with the script below.
- In CopyQ settings check the
(1) Store clipboardand(2) Store text selected using mouse.
Code
Here is a simple bash-script, that adds new tab and uses it as an extra clipboard buffer:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# Allows to save text to extra buffer in CopyQ.
# Bind `copy()` to Alt+C, `paste()` to Alt+V.
# Alt+C copies selected text to extra buffer, current clipboard remains unchanged.
# Alt+V copies latest item in extra buffer to clipboard (you still have to paste it manually with Ctrl+V, `copyq paste` is laggy).
# If item in extra buffer is already in clipboard, then Alt+V removes it from clipboard (extra buffer still has it).
set -e
CMD="$1" # One of: `copy`, `paste`
EXTRA_BUFFER="ExtraBuffer"
copy() {
local selected=$(copyq selection)
local old=$(copyq read -1)
copyq tab "$EXTRA_BUFFER" add "$selected"
copyq remove 0
copyq copy "$old"
}
paste() {
local clipboard=$(copyq read 0)
local extra=$(copyq tab "$EXTRA_BUFFER" read 0)
if [[ "$clipboard" == "$extra" ]]; then # Restoring old copied item from clipboard.
copyq remove 0
local old=$(copyq read 0)
copyq copy "$old"
else # Adding item from extra buffer to clipboard.
local extra=$(copyq tab "$EXTRA_BUFFER" read 0)
copyq write 0 "$extra"
copyq copy "$extra"
fi
}
case "$CMD" in
copy) copy;;
paste) paste;;
*) ;;
esac
You can bind it in i3wm like so (replace SCRIPT_PATH):
set $alt Mod1
bindsym $alt+C exec "bash SCRIPT_PATH copy"
bindsym $alt+V exec "bash SCRIPT_PATH paste"
Bye!
SOCIAL SHARE CARD GENERATOR