[feature request] Manual history managing and quick slot access #38
Description
Background:
When I installed the clipboard, I thought I would use it often. It hasn't happen yet. One of the reasons is what I described in #37 (the panel becomes quickly cluttered with whatever I copied from whichever application). Another reason is… I can't access the clipboard history quickly.
Suggestion:
Instead of any sorting, let rather the user to arrange the history manually. Some option to choose where new items from the (system) clipboard should come (top, bottom) is fully sufficient.
However, it is necessary to have the possibility to choose and to move the items and it must be possible not only with a mouse, but with keyboard too. It is sufficient to make slots in the history numbered (a nice label with the number would be really much more useful than the label with time information). The numbers then can be used with key bindings to access them.
Three key bindings are in my opinion enough to make the tool very powerful:
a) a key binding for pasting the content of the given slot directly in the active editor,
b) a key binding for copying the current active content to the given slot,
c) a key binding for copying the given slot to the system clipboard (i.e. copying it to the active content).
Choosing a slot after hitting such a key binding could be done in a small popup window. For instance, I could hit Ctrl+Alt+C, write 2 in the window which would appear, hit Enter and voila: the content of slot 2 would be pasted at my cursor position in the active editor. Great. Do I want to send a code snippet from slot 3 to my colleague? Ctrl+Shift+C, write 3, Enter… it's copied in the system clipboard, Alt+Tab to my e-mail client… Smooth, quick, no mouse fiddling necessary.
Well, some might argue that a window for choosing the slot number is not fancy and there should be a key binding for top ten slots. Yes, it's a possibility that saves one keystroke at the cost of setting up more key bindings (if the defaults conflict with existing ones or does not suit me). But Enter and numeric keys go very well together, so I think this should work smoothly.
Finally, the slot numbers needn't be continuous. I could use slot 1, 2, 5, 9… and use a slot with my phone number to save my phone number address book. Or… we can forget about numbers and simply allow any name for a slot (a suggestion list in the slot selection window would be nice then!).
OK, this proposal turns the Clipboard more into a Noteboard… but why not. The quick integration with the clipboard would make it incredibly powerful.