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Auto-push/pull clipboarder?

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jeme:
I wonder whether I'm just too stupid too find it, or whether there is really no function like that available somewhere (which would be an excellent extension for CHS then, I guess):

You know the situation where you have to copy a set of data from one window or document to another, from a document to a web form or a spreadsheet or whatever? And you have to do this again and again and again. Don't laugh, there is quite a few people out there who have to transfer a lot of little pieces of data this way, because an automated solution is too expensive, e.g. for managing small web sites, content management systems, maintaining meta data, filling forms etc; I have some colleagues who have to do this quite often (and the situation isn't even that rare for myself).

And their job made me wonder: Why isn't there a clipboard utility that has an auto-push/pull mode? When I switch into this mode, every CTRL+C puts the selected item on top of the clipboard stack (as usual), and every CTRL+V pastes it at the cursor and removes it from the stack.* Since I easily fall into a delirium after doing such a job for a while (just a guess ...), a little frame showing the current stack at the mouse cursor would be helpful to ensure that I'm still on track. Also, it wouldn't be bad to have an Undo shortcut at hand that allows me to fully revert the pace and to undo the previous few actions, i.e. removes the previously pasted content (and ideally even restores any potential content that might have been overwritten by that paste) and puts the thing back on the top of my stack. We all make mistakes, and all the more during such a mechanical job...  :-[

This way, I could go through e.g. a table, pick, let's say, the five cells of a row with five quick "double-click and CTRL+C"s in sequence, then I go to the form or whatever, drop the five values with another five quick "Click and Ctrl+V"s, go back to the table etc. I think, this would tremendously speed up this type of work, wouldn't it?
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* Maybe, internally, two clipboard stacks would make sense in this case, the one displayed at the mouse cursor, which reflects the push/pull status, and another one, where the pasted stuff stays in the stack. This way, the clipboard utility could keep up its clipboard history functionality without bothering the push/pull workflow.

rjbull:
I haven't tried it, but most of the even slightly advanced ones have some kind of semi-automatic multiple pasting.  E.g., read ArsClip's Help on Form Mode.  ClipCache and ClipMate have similar things that allow you to paste a series of items in one go.  They don't usually remove the items from their "database of clips," but move the pointer up and down it.  You might come to an accommodation with them.  ArsClip is free, donation accepted; the other two are payware.  ClipMate is the 700-lb gorilla of the genre.

mouser:
CHS has merge function that will let you merge a bunch of clips into one, and it does have a special pasting mode that will let it send tabs in order to advance through a form while pasting items -- though not a mode for doing that with multiple clip text, but it doesnt have a sequential/stack pasting mode.  it does seem like a good idea though.. i'd love to hear from someone who has compared clipcache, arsclip, and clipmate functionality in this regard and can describe what an elegant/powerful solution would look like for CHS that captures the best of all worlds; then i would implement that.

rjbull:
ClipMate's product description includes:
An exclusive PowerPaste(TM)  feature puts ClipMate in "rapid fire" mode, allowing quick pasting of a series of items into an application.
[...]
Do you work with a lot of structured data?  If  you have data that is separated by commas, tabs, linefeeds, etc., then ClipMate's "Exploding PowerPaste" can make short work of data entry.  People who work with a lot of contact information (lists of name, address, etc.) absolutely love this. 

--- End quote ---
Clicking on "more viewlets" on that page takes you to ClipMate Flash Demos and Tutorials.  The third one down is the demo of the feature I think you need, Tutorial 2 - PowerPaste.

jeme:
Thanks, guys, for the tips, that sounds very interesting. As soon as I have a little more time, I think I will play a little with ArsCache and with ClipMate's trial version and give you feedback. They both seem to come close to the "workflow" that I have in mind; I'm not sure though whether they are really comfortable when you have to do this with a lot of "load and shoot" actions one after another (and Clipmate seems to be surprisingly poor in terms of hotkeys, at least on the first glance). I also had thought about something like the "Exploding PowerPaste" already, so I'll definitely check that out, too (curious, whether they support splitting via regex), as well as the automated keystroke's to fill a series of form fields in sequence; I hadn't even been aware of that I have this in CHS already.

Btw, I just saw the old screenshot in the CHS help with the "Try to AutoCopy on Mouse Select" checkbox in the Startup options dialog; I had thought about something like this in the context of the auto-push/pull mode (yeah, the name is clumsy...), too, and I still think, it would be a nice thing at least for the paste part. It would require another hotkey then to toggle between normal/copy mode and paste mode, because copy-to-clipboard requires to select the string to be copied first, so that just a click for "copy" would not work here; and I'm not sure whether this switch-over wouldn't kill the entire flow. I guess, that needs some more conceptual work still...

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