clippets 0.4.1

UI to build up clipboard content from (rich) text snippets.

Clippets

A terminal based tool to quickly combine (rich) text snippets into the clipboard.

https://github.com/paul-ollis/snippets/assets/6062510/acc93396-c7b8-429f-825e-cfd940959760

Clippets s a Textual (https://textual.textualize.io/) framework based application.

Status

This is a beta software. I believe that it is useful and usable in its current form:

• It performs its basic function and provides a user interface that is good enough to support productive use.

• It has a fairly comprehensive test suite.

• I hope that crashes should be rare (backup files are maintained to minimise the impact).

However:

• It still needs more tests.

• There are areas of mouse and keyboard support that beg improvement.

• Some desirable features are obviously missing, such as:

  • There is no proper documentation beyound the built-in help.

  • It does not yet work on MacOS.

Getting started

Windows installation

Install Python

You will need Python, which you can download from www.python.org.

• Choose the latest version (currently 3.11)

• When you install select the following additional options, when prompted:

  • Add Python to environment variables.

  • Precompile standard library.

Extra Python configuration

Now add the Python script directory to your PATH as follows:

• Open a Command Promp (type ‘cmd’ in the Windows search box to find the Command Prompt app).

• At the prompt enter this command:

  python -c "import sys; print(sys.executable)"

  This show where Python is installed. On my PC this displays:

  c:\Users\Paul\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Pytheon311\python.exe

• Type ‘environment’ in the Windows search box. The open “Edit the system environment variables, Control panel”.

  • Click on the “Environment Variables” near the bottom or the “System Properties” window.

  • In the “Environment Variables” window, find “Path” entry, select it and click the “Edit…” button below.

  • In the “Edit Environment Variable” window, click the “New” button and enter the Python scripts path, based on the Python installation directory obtained earlier. In my case the path I need is:

    c:\Users\Paul\AppData\Local\Programs\Python\Pytheon311\Scripts

    i.e. replace “python.exe” with “Scripts”.A

• Click OK and close all the windows opened so far, including the “Command Prompt” window.

Install Windows Terminal (highly recommended)

Clippets will run in a standard windows terminal, but you will get much better results (such as italic text, better colours, included the excellent Cascadia fonts) if you install “Windows Terminal”, which is readily available in the Microsoft App store.

After you have installed Windows Shell, I highly recommend that you make it the default for command line tools. (I am not aware of any good reason to keep using the old console.)

• Enter “terminal host” in the Windows search box and run “Choose a terminal host app for interactive command-line tools”.

• Scroll down (if necessary) to the “Terminal” secion and make sure that “Windows Console Host” is selected.

Install Clippets

• Open a new Command Promp (type ‘cmd’ in the Windows search box to find the Command Prompt app).

• Enter the command:

  python -m pip install --user clippets

This will install the Clippets application.

Linux

Make sure Python is installed using your distribution’s package manager. You should then ba able to install clippets using “pip”.

python -m pip install --user clippets

If the above does not work, you may need to run:

python -m pip ensurepip

If this indicates that your distribution blocks “ensurepip” for the system insallation of Python, consider using a virtual environment (see https://docs.python.org/3/library/venv.html for more details).

python -m venv clippets

# Activate (assuming you are using Bash). See above link for other shells.
source clippets/bin/activate

python -m pip install clippets

Running clippets/snippets

You will first need a minimal file containing snippets. For example:

Main
  @md@
    My *first* snippet

You can name the file as you want. Let’s assume the file is called ‘snippets.txt’. Run clippets as one of the following commands:

snippets snippets.txt
clippets snippets.txt

The F1 key will bring up a help screen to get you going.