crossclip 0.1.0

A Cross Platform clipboard manager

Crossclip

A cross platform clipboard API for python.

Current State of the Package

Currently, this package is still in Beta. Most of the initial features are complete, but most of the backends are untested (the only tested backend is the GTK backend). A first stable release is not too far out, but it will take some work

Overview

About

Crossclip provides a standard python API for interacting with the system clipboard. As of now, Crossclip supports MacOS, Windows, and Gtk- and Qt-Based desktop environments for GNU/Linux. More environments can be added.

Dependencies

All systems

• Pillow ()

Linux

• Gtk users: PyGObject
• Qt users: PyQt5

Windows

• pywin32

Mac

• pyobjc

Installation

This package is hosted on PyPI. Install via:

$ pip install crossclip

Usage

Here is an example program:

# Import the clipboard frontend class and Pillow Image package
from crossclip.clipboard import Clipboard
from PIL import Image

# Create a new clipboard instance
cb = Clipboard()

# Get text from the clipboard
mytext = cb.get_text()

# Get an image from the clipboard
myimg = cb.get_image() # myimg is a PIL.Image class

# Put text onto the clipboard
my_message = 'Hello World'
cb.set_text(my_message)

# Put an image onto the clipboard
cb.set_image(my_pil_image_instance)

# Access the backend instance
backend_text = cb.backend.get_text()

It's as easy as that. The frontend wraps all of the backend specifics and provides a simple and uniform interface.

Implementation Details

This library uses a collection of backends to provide clipboard functionality for a specific system or clipboard. For example, there is a clipboard backend for the Windows system clipboard and the Gtk+ clipboard. Each backend inherits from an abstract class (interface?) that provides a set of common abstract functions that each backend should implement.

Each of these backends are used in the frontend class, clipboard.Clipboard. The Clipboard class determines the backend to use based on the system platform determined by the sys.platform value. It has the same functions layed out by the BaseBackend class, but implements the interface differently. The Clipboard class carries an instance of the backend and uses its functions to provide clipboard functionality.

With a design like this, the library is extensible. New backends can be added and removed.

Contributing

See CONTRIBUTING.md

License

This package is licensed under the GPLv3.