Hi all:

Does anyone know the simplest way to copy text to clipboard from processing?

Backstory:

I've made a little color picker app, and right now it does a "println" to give me the hex value for the color chosen. The downside is that I then have to select the value, then copy and paste it. This also means that I can't export a standalone app, since I don't have access to the 'print' box outside of Processing.

Ideally I could just have the program automatically 'copy' the hex value when a color is chosen. Then I could export the app and run it as standalone, and easily choose a color and paste it into my code.

Adam

Thanks! It looks like this is Windows-only. Is there a Mac version that you know of?

Yes, on my Mac this line is throwing back an error:

Code:

public void run() {
  clipboard = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard();
} 

It says:

Quote:


Sorry if this is a dummy question!

Quote:


Perfect!

After mucking about with it a bit I've gotten it to work. For a demo app it had a lot of unneeded extra functionality. I've simplified it to make it a little easier to understand.

Code:

// //////////////////
// Clipboard class for Processing
// by seltar, modified by adamohern
// v 0115AO
// only works with programs. applets require signing

import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
import java.awt.Toolkit; 

ClipHelper cp = new ClipHelper();

void setup() { size(200,200); }
void draw() {}

// Press Any Key to Copy
void keyPressed() { cp.copyString(""+(int)random(255)); }


// CLIPHELPER OBJECT CLASS:

class ClipHelper {
  Clipboard clipboard;
  
  ClipHelper() {
    getClipboard();  
  }
  
  void getClipboard () {
    // this is our simple thread that grabs the clipboard
    Thread clipThread = new Thread() {
	public void run() {
	  clipboard = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard();
	}
    };
  
    // start the thread as a daemon thread and wait for it to die
    if (clipboard == null) {
	try {
	  clipThread.setDaemon(true);
	  clipThread.start();
	  clipThread.join();
	}  
	catch (Exception e) {}
    }
  }
  
  void copyString (String data) {
    copyTransferableObject(new StringSelection(data));
  }
  
  void copyTransferableObject (Transferable contents) {
    getClipboard();
    clipboard.setContents(contents, null);
  }
  
  String pasteString () {
    String data = null;
    try {
	data = (String)pasteObject(DataFlavor.stringFlavor);
    }  
    catch (Exception e) {
	System.err.println("Error getting String from clipboard: " + e);
    }
    return data;
  }
  
  Object pasteObject (DataFlavor flavor)  
  throws UnsupportedFlavorException, IOException
  {
    Object obj = null;
    getClipboard();
    
    Transferable content = clipboard.getContents(null);
    if (content != null)
    obj = content.getTransferData(flavor);
    
    return obj;
  }
}