Using clipboards

In addition to the usual Cut, Copy and Paste, Eddie has an entire array of extra clipboard features to serve the needs of heavy Copy/Paste editing. To start with, there are four independent clipboards available. Each of the first three clipboards has a clipboard button in the button bar.

The clipboard button indicates that a clipboard is full and can be used to quickly examine the contents of the clipboard. The first clipboard is shared with the rest of the system and uses familiar keyboard shortcuts as well as few new ones:

Command-X

Cut

Command-Shift-X

Cut and append to clipboard

Command-C

Copy

Command-Shift-C

Copy and append to clipboard

Command-V

Paste

Command-Control-V

Swap paste

Appending to the clipboard

Appending to existing clipboard contents can be useful when collecting several pieces of text that are to be inserted with a single paste. You can use Cut and append (Command-Shift-X) and Copy and append (Command-Shift-C) to do just that. When you use normal Cut or Copy functions, the previous contents of the clipboard is completely replaced with the new selected text. With the appending flavors of Copy and Cut the selected text gets appended to whatever is already in the clipboard. In the following text, you can select 111,

Copy (Command-C), then select 222, Copy and append (Command-Shift-C) and the clipboard will now contain 111222.

Swap Paste

Swap paste pastes the contents of a clipboard into a selection while putting the old selection contents back onto the clipboard. Using Swap paste you can easily go from:

one two three

to:

three two one

First double click on one, Copy (Command-C), then double click on three, Swap paste (Command-Control-V) and then with three in the clipboard double click on one and Paste (Command-V).

Clipboard Stack

A clipboard can also be used in stack mode - this allows a single clipboard to hold multiple independent clipboard items at the same time. By using a stack mode Copy, or Cut the text being copied is pushed onto the clipboard, on top of the existing items. Stack mode Paste pops the topmost item from the clipboard stack and pastes it into a document. If there is any clipboard element left on the clipboard stack, it will be used in the next Paste. Stack mode and regular mode copy/cut/paste commands can be used interchangeably. Stack mode Copy/Paste is useful for gathering several fragments of text in one part of a document and then pasting them in another. Unlike the appending flavors of Cut and Copy, you can still paste the individual clipboard items into different places.

Command-Option-X

Cut and Push onto clipboard stack

Command-Option-C

Copy and Push onto clipboard stack

Command-Option-V

Pop from clipboard stack and Paste

When using the stack mode, it is useful to examine the contents of the different levels of the clipboard stack by pressing the corresponding clipboard button. The stack item that will get pasted next is the lower item in the clipboard panel, "copy this next" in our example.

Using multiple clipboards

Currently Eddie supports four independent clipboards. Each of the first three clipboards is represented by a clipboard button in the button bar. The first clipboard on the left is the main clipboard. The topmost element on the stack of this clipboard is the standard Mac clipboard, shared among applications.
The second third and fourth clipboard have the following keyboard shortcuts assigned:

Keypad 1

Paste from second clipboard

Keypad 2

Paste from third clipboard

Keypad 3

Paste from fourth clipboard

Command-Keypad 1

Copy to second clipboard

Command-Keypad 2

Copy to third clipboard

Command-Keypad 3

Copy to fourth clipboard

Option-Keypad 1

Pop from second clipboard stack and Paste

Option-Keypad 2

Pop from third clipboard stack and Paste

Option-Keypad 3

Pop from fourth clipboard stack and Paste

Command-Option-Keypad 1

Copy and Push onto second clipboard stack

Command-Option-Keypad 2

Copy and Push onto third clipboard stack

Command-Option-Keypad 3

Copy and Push onto fourth clipboard stack

The fourth clipboard does not have a corresponding button and you will probably use it very rarely.

You may prefer to use mouse clicks to use the clipboard:

Click

Paste

Option-Click

Pop from clipboard stack and Paste

Command-Click

Copy

Command-Option-Click

Copy and Push onto clipboard stack

Control-Click

Make clipboard empty

All of the four clipboards are persistent. The first clipboard is shared with the rest of the system, the remaining three are saved on quit and restored when Eddie is re-launched.