ClipTool Manual

First Edition, ClipTool Version 38.1

Torsten Poulin

(torsten@diku.dk)

Copyright © 1994 Torsten Poulin

Published by Torsten Poulin.

Permission is granted to make and distribute verbatim copies of this manual provided the copyright notice and this permission notice are preserved on all copies.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute modified versions of this manual under the conditions for verbatim copying, provided also that the sections entitled “Distribution” and “GNU General Public License” are included exactly as in the original, and provided that the entire resulting derived work is distributed under the terms of a permission notice identical to this one.

Permission is granted to copy and distribute translations of this manual into another language, under the above conditions for modified versions, except that the sections entitled “Distribution” and “GNU General Public License” may be included in a translation approved by the author instead of in the original English.

Legal Stuff

The Manual

Distribution

ClipTool is free; this means that everyone is free to use it and free to redistribute it on a free basis. ClipTool is not in the public domain; it is copyrighted and there are restrictions on its distribution, but these restrictions are designed to permit everything that a good cooperating citizen would want to do. What is not allowed is to try to prevent others from further sharing any version of ClipTool that they might get from you. The precise conditions are found in the GNU General Public License that comes with ClipTool and also appears following this section.

The easiest way to get a copy of ClipTool is from someone else who has it. You need not ask for permission to do so, or tell any one else; just copy it.

If you have access to the Internet, you can get the latest distribution version of ClipTool from Aminet:

Most of these sites delete old files, however wuarchive.wustl.edu and ftp.luth.se keep all files.

GNU General Public License

Version 2, June 1991

Copyright © 1989, 1991 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies
of this license document, but changing it is not allowed.

Preamble

The licenses for most software are designed to take away your freedom to share and change it. By contrast, the GNU General Public License is intended to guarantee your freedom to share and change free software–to make sure the software is free for all its users. This General Public License applies to most of the Free Software Foundation’s software and to any other program whose authors commit to using it. (Some other Free Software Foundation software is covered by the GNU Library General Public License instead.) You can apply it to your programs, too.

When we speak of free software, we are referring to freedom, not price. Our General Public Licenses are designed to make sure that you have the freedom to distribute copies of free software (and charge for this service if you wish), that you receive source code or can get it if you want it, that you can change the software or use pieces of it in new free programs; and that you know you can do these things.

To protect your rights, we need to make restrictions that forbid anyone to deny you these rights or to ask you to surrender the rights. These restrictions translate to certain responsibilities for you if you distribute copies of the software, or if you modify it.

For example, if you distribute copies of such a program, whether gratis or for a fee, you must give the recipients all the rights that you have. You must make sure that they, too, receive or can get the source code. And you must show them these terms so they know their rights.

We protect your rights with two steps: (1) copyright the software, and (2) offer you this license which gives you legal permission to copy, distribute and/or modify the software.

Also, for each author’s protection and ours, we want to make certain that everyone understands that there is no warranty for this free software. If the software is modified by someone else and passed on, we want its recipients to know that what they have is not the original, so that any problems introduced by others will not reflect on the original authors’ reputations.

Finally, any free program is threatened constantly by software patents. We wish to avoid the danger that redistributors of a free program will individually obtain patent licenses, in effect making the program proprietary. To prevent this, we have made it clear that any patent must be licensed for everyone’s free use or not licensed at all.

The precise terms and conditions for copying, distribution and modification follow.

1. This License applies to any program or other work which contains a notice placed by the copyright holder saying it may be distributed under the terms of this General Public License. The "Program", below, refers to any such program or work, and a "work based on the Program" means either the Program or any derivative work under copyright law: that is to say, a work containing the Program or a portion of it, either verbatim or with modifications and/or translated into another language. (Hereinafter, translation is included without limitation in the term "modification".) Each licensee is addressed as "you".

   Activities other than copying, distribution and modification are not covered by this License; they are outside its scope. The act of running the Program is not restricted, and the output from the Program is covered only if its contents constitute a work based on the Program (independent of having been made by running the Program). Whether that is true depends on what the Program does.

2. You may copy and distribute verbatim copies of the Program’s source code as you receive it, in any medium, provided that you conspicuously and appropriately publish on each copy an appropriate copyright notice and disclaimer of warranty; keep intact all the notices that refer to this License and to the absence of any warranty; and give any other recipients of the Program a copy of this License along with the Program.

   You may charge a fee for the physical act of transferring a copy, and you may at your option offer warranty protection in exchange for a fee.

3. You may modify your copy or copies of the Program or any portion of it, thus forming a work based on the Program, and copy and distribute such modifications or work under the terms of Section 2 above, provided that you also meet all of these conditions:
   • You must cause the modified files to carry prominent notices stating that you changed the files and the date of any change.
   • You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License.
   • If the modified program normally reads commands interactively when run, you must cause it, when started running for such interactive use in the most ordinary way, to print or display an announcement including an appropriate copyright notice and a notice that there is no warranty (or else, saying that you provide a warranty) and that users may redistribute the program under these conditions, and telling the user how to view a copy of this License. (Exception: if the Program itself is interactive but does not normally print such an announcement, your work based on the Program is not required to print an announcement.)

   These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it.

   Thus, it is not the intent of this section to claim rights or contest your rights to work written entirely by you; rather, the intent is to exercise the right to control the distribution of derivative or collective works based on the Program.

   In addition, mere aggregation of another work not based on the Program with the Program (or with a work based on the Program) on a volume of a storage or distribution medium does not bring the other work under the scope of this License.

4. You may copy and distribute the Program (or a work based on it, under Section 3) in object code or executable form under the terms of Sections 2 and 3 above provided that you also do one of the following:
   • Accompany it with the complete corresponding machine-readable source code, which must be distributed under the terms of Sections 2 and 3 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
   • Accompany it with a written offer, valid for at least three years, to give any third party, for a charge no more than your cost of physically performing source distribution, a complete machine-readable copy of the corresponding source code, to be distributed under the terms of Sections 2 and 3 above on a medium customarily used for software interchange; or,
   • Accompany it with the information you received as to the offer to distribute corresponding source code. (This alternative is allowed only for noncommercial distribution and only if you received the program in object code or executable form with such an offer, in accord with the previous Subsection.)

   The source code for a work means the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it. For an executable work, complete source code means all the source code for all modules it contains, plus any associated interface definition files, plus the scripts used to control compilation and installation of the executable. However, as a special exception, the source code distributed need not include anything that is normally distributed (in either source or binary form) with the major components (compiler, kernel, and so on) of the operating system on which the executable runs, unless that component itself accompanies the executable.

   If distribution of executable or object code is made by offering access to copy from a designated place, then offering equivalent access to copy the source code from the same place counts as distribution of the source code, even though third parties are not compelled to copy the source along with the object code.

5. You may not copy, modify, sublicense, or distribute the Program except as expressly provided under this License. Any attempt otherwise to copy, modify, sublicense or distribute the Program is void, and will automatically terminate your rights under this License. However, parties who have received copies, or rights, from you under this License will not have their licenses terminated so long as such parties remain in full compliance.
6. You are not required to accept this License, since you have not signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to modify or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These actions are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License. Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying, distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
7. Each time you redistribute the Program (or any work based on the Program), the recipient automatically receives a license from the original licensor to copy, distribute or modify the Program subject to these terms and conditions. You may not impose any further restrictions on the recipients’ exercise of the rights granted herein. You are not responsible for enforcing compliance by third parties to this License.
8. If, as a consequence of a court judgment or allegation of patent infringement or for any other reason (not limited to patent issues), conditions are imposed on you (whether by court order, agreement or otherwise) that contradict the conditions of this License, they do not excuse you from the conditions of this License. If you cannot distribute so as to satisfy simultaneously your obligations under this License and any other pertinent obligations, then as a consequence you may not distribute the Program at all. For example, if a patent license would not permit royalty-free redistribution of the Program by all those who receive copies directly or indirectly through you, then the only way you could satisfy both it and this License would be to refrain entirely from distribution of the Program.

   If any portion of this section is held invalid or unenforceable under any particular circumstance, the balance of the section is intended to apply and the section as a whole is intended to apply in other circumstances.

   It is not the purpose of this section to induce you to infringe any patents or other property right claims or to contest validity of any such claims; this section has the sole purpose of protecting the integrity of the free software distribution system, which is implemented by public license practices. Many people have made generous contributions to the wide range of software distributed through that system in reliance on consistent application of that system; it is up to the author/donor to decide if he or she is willing to distribute software through any other system and a licensee cannot impose that choice.

   This section is intended to make thoroughly clear what is believed to be a consequence of the rest of this License.

9. If the distribution and/or use of the Program is restricted in certain countries either by patents or by copyrighted interfaces, the original copyright holder who places the Program under this License may add an explicit geographical distribution limitation excluding those countries, so that distribution is permitted only in or among countries not thus excluded. In such case, this License incorporates the limitation as if written in the body of this License.
10. The Free Software Foundation may publish revised and/or new versions of the General Public License from time to time. Such new versions will be similar in spirit to the present version, but may differ in detail to address new problems or concerns.
11. Each version is given a distinguishing version number. If the Program specifies a version number of this License which applies to it and "any later version", you have the option of following the terms and conditions either of that version or of any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. If the Program does not specify a version number of this License, you may choose any version ever published by the Free Software Foundation.
12. If you wish to incorporate parts of the Program into other free programs whose distribution conditions are different, write to the author to ask for permission. For software which is copyrighted by the Free Software Foundation, write to the Free Software Foundation; we sometimes make exceptions for this. Our decision will be guided by the two goals of preserving the free status of all derivatives of our free software and of promoting the sharing and reuse of software generally.
13. BECAUSE THE PROGRAM IS LICENSED FREE OF CHARGE, THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE PROGRAM, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE PROGRAM "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE PROGRAM IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE PROGRAM PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
14. IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER, OR ANY OTHER PARTY WHO MAY MODIFY AND/OR REDISTRIBUTE THE PROGRAM AS PERMITTED ABOVE, BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE PROGRAM (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE PROGRAM TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER PROGRAMS), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

Appendix: How to Apply These Terms to Your New Programs

If you develop a new program, and you want it to be of the greatest possible use to the public, the best way to achieve this is to make it free software which everyone can redistribute and change under these terms.

To do so, attach the following notices to the program. It is safest to attach them to the start of each source file to most effectively convey the exclusion of warranty; and each file should have at least the "copyright" line and a pointer to where the full notice is found.

one line to give the program's name and a brief idea of what it does.
Copyright (C) 19yy  name of author

This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
(at your option) any later version.

This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
Foundation, Inc., 675 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA.

Also add information on how to contact you by electronic and paper mail.

If the program is interactive, make it output a short notice like this when it starts in an interactive mode:

Gnomovision version 69, Copyright (C) 19yy name of author
Gnomovision comes with ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTY; for details type `show w'.
This is free software, and you are welcome to redistribute it
under certain conditions; type `show c' for details.

The hypothetical commands ‘show w’ and ‘show c’ should show the appropriate parts of the General Public License. Of course, the commands you use may be called something other than ‘show w’ and ‘show c’; they could even be mouse-clicks or menu items—whatever suits your program.

You should also get your employer (if you work as a programmer) or your school, if any, to sign a “copyright disclaimer” for the program, if necessary. Here a sample; alter the names:

Yoyodyne, Inc., hereby disclaims all copyright interest in the program
`Gnomovision' (which makes passes at compilers) written by James Hacker.

signature of Ty Coon, 1 April 1989
Ty Coon, President of Vice

This General Public License does not permit incorporating your program into proprietary programs. If your program is a subroutine library, you may consider it more useful to permit linking proprietary applications with the library. If this is what you want to do, use the GNU Library General Public License instead of this License.

1 Introduction

ClipTool is basically a storehouse for text you may want to paste into other programs, perhaps multiple times.

2 Options

ClipTool understands the following icon tooltypes:

CX_PRIORITY=priority

lets you change the priority of ClipTool relative to other Commodities Exchange programs. The default priority is 0. The valid range is -128 to 127; the higher the number, the higher the priority. This only changes the order in which the Commodities gets to look at input events.

CX_POPKEY=hotkey string

specifies the key or keys that must be pressed to pop up ClipTool’s window. The default is ‘control lalt c’. Please refer to your Workbench manual for a list of valid key combinations.

CX_POPUP=yes|no

determines whether the GUI window is opened when ClipTool is launched. The default is ‘yes’. You will probably want to change this if you put the program in the ‘WBStartup’ drawer.

EMBOSSED=yes|no

Normally ClipTool will use embossed imagery to give its buttonbar a 3-D look, unless it is run on a two colour screen. Setting EMBOSSED=no forces ClipTool to always use its simpler 2-D imagery. This may be useful if your colour preferences make the 3-D buttons look strange.

CREATEICONS=yes|no

can be used to enable or suppress the creation of icons when data is saved to a file. The default is to create icons. This can be turned on and off at will.

UNIT=0-255

is the clipboard unit to use when ClipTool is launched. It can be changed while the program is running. The default is 0.

APPICON=yes|no

determines whether ClipTool shall put an AppIcon, a dropbox, on the Workbench. The default is ‘yes’.

PORTNAME=Arexx port name

is used to override the default port name, which is ‘CLIPTOOL’.

When started from the shell, ClipTool accepts arguments corresponding to the icon tooltypes according to this AmigaDOS template:

CX_PRIORITY/K/N,CX_POPKEY/K,CX_POPUP/K,EMBOSSED/K,CREATEICONS/K,UNIT/K/N,APPICON/K,PORTNAME/K

The case and order of the keywords doesn’t matter. The defaults are the same as when used as tooltypes.

3 ARexx Interface

3.1 ARexx Commands

In this section, each ARexx command is explained following a standard outline:

The format listing shows all the arguments and keywords accepted by the command. Square brackets enclose arguments and keywords that are optional. They are accepted by the command but are not required. A vertical bar is used to separate options of which you may only choose one.

In the command template, each argument is specified by a keyword (a preset argument that the command understands) followed by a modifier /X where X is one of the characters A, K, N, or S. Each keyword can have several of the modifiers. Neither the keywords nor the modifiers are case-dependent.

This is followed by a description of the command.

3.1.1 OPEN

Format: OPEN FILENAME file [DIR directory]
Template: NAME=FILENAME/K/A,DIR/K

This command tries to open the file specified by the file argument, load it, and make it the current buffer. It recognizes IFF FTXT files automatically.

If you specify a relative pathname, ClipTool may not be able to locate the file, because its current directory may differ from the current directory of the process that sent the OPEN command. To overcome this problem, you can use the DIR keyword to tell ClipTool to temporarily change its current directory to directory:

'open filename' foo 'dir' pragma('D')

The built-in ARexx function pragma(), with the option D, returns the full path of the current directory.

The keyword NAME is provided as an alternative to the AUISG compliant FILENAME.

3.1.2 SAVEAS

Format: SAVEAS NAME file [FTXT] [DIR directory]
Template: NAME/K/A,FTXT/S,DIR/K

This command saves the contents of the current buffer to the file specified by the file argument. If the FTXT switch is used, it will be saved as an IFF FTXT file.

If you specify a relative pathname, the result may not be what you expect, because ClipTool’s current directory may differ from the current directory of the process that sent the SAVEAS command. To overcome this problem, you can use the DIR keyword to tell ClipTool to temporarily change its current directory to directory (for a full example, see section SaveClip.rexx):

'saveas name' foo 'dir' pragma('D')

The built-in ARexx function pragma(), with the option D, returns the full path of the current directory.

3.1.3 SHOW

Format: SHOW
Template: (none)

This command opens ClipTool’s main window on the default public screen. If it is already open, it is moved in front of the other windows on the screen and made active.

SHOW is a synonym for the AUISG compliant command ACTIVATE.

3.1.4 HIDE

Format: HIDE
Template: (none)

This command closes ClipTool’s main window. It is not an error, if the window is already closed.

HIDE is a synonym for the AUISG compliant command DEACTIVATE.

3.1.5 ACTIVATE

Format: ACTIVATE
Template: (none)

This command opens ClipTool’s main window on the default public screen. If it is already open, it is moved in front of the other windows on the screen and made active.

ACTIVATE is an AUISG compliant synonym for the SHOW command.

3.1.6 DEACTIVATE

Format: DEACTIVATE
Template: (none)

This command closes ClipTool’s main window. It is not an error, if the window is already closed.

DEACTIVATE is an AUISG compliant synonym for the HIDE command.

3.1.7 QUIT

Format: QUIT
Template: (none)

This command stops ClipTool.

3.1.8 CUT

Format: CUT
Template: (none)

This command removes the current buffer and places it in the current clipboard unit.

3.1.9 COPY

Format: COPY
Template: (none)

This command places a duplicate of the current buffer into the current clipboard unit.

3.1.10 PASTE

Format: PASTE
Template: (none)

This command puts the contents of the current clipboard unit into a new buffer. This buffer is made the current buffer.

3.1.11 ERASE

Format: ERASE
Template: (none)

This command removes the current buffer.

3.1.12 PREVIOUS

Format: PREVIOUS
Template: (none)

This command makes the previous buffer the current buffer.

3.1.13 NEXT

Format: NEXT
Template: (none)

This command makes the next buffer the current buffer.

3.1.14 GETNUMBER

Format: GETNUMBER VAR name
Template: VAR/K/A

Returns the number of clip buffers in the ARexx variable name.

3.1.15 GETCURRENT

Format: GETCURRENT VAR name
Template: VAR/K/A

Returns the number of the current buffer in the ARexx variable name.

3.1.16 CREATEICONS

Format: CREATEICONS ON|OFF
Template: ON/S,OFF/S

This command controls the creation of icons when saving files. One of the switches must be given.

3.1.17 GETCREATEICONS

Format: GETCREATEICONS VAR name
Template: VAR/K/A

Returns the current state of the ‘Create icons?’ menu item in the ARexx variable name. The state is one of two possible strings: ‘ON’ or ‘OFF’. Thus, the contents of name can be used as an argument to CREATEICONS (see section CREATEICONS).

3.1.18 APPICON

Format: APPICON ON|OFF
Template: ON/S,OFF/S

This command turns the AppIcon on and off.

3.1.19 GETUNIT

Format: GETUNIT VAR name
Template: VAR/K/A

Returns the clipboard unit number in the ARexx variable name.

3.1.20 SETUNIT

Format: SETUNIT number
Template: /N/A

This command sets the clipboard unit to number.

3.2 Examples

This section contains a few example scripts, showing how you may control ClipTool from ARexx.

3.2.1 LoadClip.rexx

/*
 * loadclip - Load a file into the clipboard.
 */

parse arg fname
address cliptool
'open filename' fname 'dir' pragma(d)
'cut'

3.2.2 SaveClip.rexx

/*
 * saveclip - Save the contents of the clipboard to a file.
 */

parse arg fname
address cliptool
'getnumber var before'
'paste'
'getnumber var after'
if before < after then do
    'getcreateicons var state'
    'createicons off'   /* we don't want an icon */
    'saveas name' fname 'dir' pragma('Directory')
    'erase'
    'createicons' state /* restore the previous state */
end
else say 'Clipboard is empty'

3.2.3 EDCopy.ed

/*
 * EDCopy - Copy the marked block to the current clipboard unit.
 *   Assumes ClipTool is running.
 *   You can add it to Ed's EDIT menu if you put
 *   the following command in S:Ed-startup:
 *
 *     SI n 2 "Copy to Clipboard" "rx!EDCopy.ed!"
 *
 *   where n is the menu item number.
 *
 *  You can also add it to a key with something like
 *
 *     SF n "rx!EDCopy.ed!"
 *
 *  where n range from 1 to 57. Please refer to the Ed docs for details.
 */

tempfile = 'T:EDCLIP-'pragma('ID')
options failat 21
'WB!'tempfile'!' /* Tell Ed to write the block */
if rc = 0 then do
    address cliptool 'open filename' tempfile
    address cliptool 'cut'
    address command 'delete quiet force' tempfile
    'SM!Copied!'
end
else 'SM!No block selected!'
exit

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