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Recommend a Clipboard Enhancer!

OldCorpse

OldCorpse

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Dec 7, 2005
1,758
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OK, I can't believe the paucity of clipboard enhancers in OSX - the windows world has a ton of very nice programs that allow you to extend the clipboard... meanwhile OSX has 3 that I found, and all are dreadful. I hate iClip, ClipDoubler is not freeware and Multi-Board has a 1 star rating on versiontracker (simply doesn't work).

Am I missing something? Is there anything else in the whole wide world of OS X, or is it yet again, 3 miserable apps in OSX and a thousand in win? Can you recommend one that's good and preferably freeware? TIA!
 
Since you've got a G4, try out iSnip, one of my favourite little utilities when I had my iBook.

I actually consider using it on my MacBook, too, even if it is PPC only and would require a lot of resources to run through Rosetta, since it doesn't seem like a universal version will ever come... :(
 
Thanks!

Thanks! Jumpcut seems a bit unfinished, iSnip looks good though sadly development was abandoned almost 2 years ago, and it has some flaws, but I like it so far... good find! I'm gonna use iSnip so far, but keep the suggestions coming, especially if you have personal experience with the app! TIA!
 
There's also shadowclipboard, Popcopy, and, if you use quicksilver, that has a built-in clipboard extender functionality (you may have to install the plug-in) that works great (for me, anyways) so you should give that a whirl
 
You said that you hate it, but iClip was just upgraded to version 4. Have you tried that version yet?
 
Thanks!

Thank you guys for the new suggestions... I have not tried iClip 4, but what I hated about iClip was among other things the stupid panel that's ALWAYS on, and that's constantly getting triggered because I happen to put my mouse pointer near the area where the panel is hidden (left or right, doesn't matter), so I doubt they removed that from iClip 4. Anyhow, I gave PTHPasteboard a try, and had to immediately remove it, as a the clipping window appeared and would simply not go away - there was no way to get it to disappear... unacceptable, obviously some kind of bug, so I removed the whole application. I hadn't tried the other suggestions, I'll do that in due time... so far, I've been using iSnip per Mitthrawnuruodo's suggestion, and like it so far... thanks again to everybody!
 
indiean said:
There's also shadowclipboard, Popcopy, and, if you use quicksilver, that has a built-in clipboard extender functionality (you may have to install the plug-in) that works great (for me, anyways) so you should give that a whirl
Click to expand...

I highly recommend use QuickSilver's Shelf plug-in. I think it will do everything you want it to, and Quicksilver will give you TONS more functionality, and all for free.

This is what I use, and I will likely never use anything else to solve this problem.
 
epochblue said:
I highly recommend use QuickSilver's Shelf plug-in. I think it will do everything you want it to, and Quicksilver will give you TONS more functionality, and all for free.

This is what I use, and I will likely never use anything else to solve this problem.
Click to expand...

I have to confess, I've read and heard about Quicksilver and people raving about it, but I've never really tried it out. I guess partially because I don't really see how it's useful - I mean, I find launching apps from the dock quite easy, especially that I have my app folder in the dock, plus, can't you do the same thing with Spotlight? You just hit command + space to bring up Spotlight just like Quicksilver, then start typing in the name of the app and it pops up - how is Quicksilver any faster or easier? Plus the other thing is that I'm always uneasey about apps that hook too deeply into the OS, because that can cause instability of the system, and I've seen such complaints regarding Quicksilver on Versiontracker.

In the end I guess I'll have to give QS a try to see why folks are raving about it, though I'm put off by what I suspect is a steep learning curve. Maybe the wisest thing would be to wait for Leopard and see what that does... because I can see how Spaces would be useful - you just change your entire desktop environement which you can pre set with whatever apps and folders you need to work on a given project... that would remove the necessity of a dedicated app/folder launcher like QS.
 
I'm not a heavy quicksilver user myself, but I think one of the reasons people love it is because it can do so much more than just launch apps - for example, you can control iTunes through it, append to text files, compose an email, etc. with it...I honestly am not that familiar with the app at all, maybe because I haven't invested that much time into learning it, but I felt that with very little learning you can harness its functionality in a way that will help you (if that made sense.) ;)
 
I didn't mean to turn this thread into a QS love-fest, but QS is far more than just an app launcher.

Like a previous poster said, you can send e-mail through it, append to text files, control iTunes, load bookmarks, upload pictures to Flickr, keep a ludicrous Clipboard history (or use the permanent clipboard, the Shelf), and probably a million other things.

If you're genuinely interested in getting started with QuickSilver, I recommend checking out some screencasts first. TheAppleBlog has some excellent screencasts that should give you a good idea of what QS is all about. YouTube should also be overflowing with QS screencasts.

Good luck - and if you need any help, feel free to PM me.
 
epochblue said:
I didn't mean to turn this thread into a QS love-fest, but QS is far more than just an app launcher.

Like a previous poster said, you can send e-mail through it, append to text files, control iTunes, load bookmarks, upload pictures to Flickr, keep a ludicrous Clipboard history (or use the permanent clipboard, the Shelf), and probably a million other things.

If you're genuinely interested in getting started with QuickSilver, I recommend checking out some screencasts first. TheAppleBlog has some excellent screencasts that should give you a good idea of what QS is all about. YouTube should also be overflowing with QS screencasts.

Good luck - and if you need any help, feel free to PM me.
Click to expand...

Cool, thanks! I'll check it out. Meanwhile, just because we like to be thorough and not only fanbois, here's some critical perspective on QS... if you read the philosophy of these folks, you'll see they are not some kind of maniacs or anything, but extremely disciplined Apple platform developers/coders, so root around the entire site to get a feel for what's going on... meanwhile here's the QS linky:

http://rixstep.com/4/2/qs,00.shtml
 
Quicksilver's Shelf seems inadequate

I read this thread because I've been comparing iClip and Quicksilver. They're comparable regarding the clipboard. But with anything you want to store and reuse, Quicksilver is not very helpful.

In Quicksilver's Shelf -- unless I'm missing something -- you cannot rearrange items. (You can on its Clipboard.) Each time you need something from the Shelf, you have to search for it.

With iClip, the items are arranged in sets, they can be reordered within the sets, they can be named, and you have the choice of displaying the item's name or a small visual representation. (Quicksilver's Shelf doesn't allow for naming.) I've got an iClip set for code, a set for commonly-used email clips, and a few others. iClip reveals only those items necessary for my current task, and that is a huge help for my workflow.

When I was trying out Quicksilver, I just gave up searching for some items and typed them in the old-fashioned way. Quicksilver is an impressive piece of work and I love that it's free, but I have a difficult time imagining how anyone could use its Shelf to improve efficiency.
 
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