ClipMate at $19.95 on BitsduJour today - Sept. 4

[cyberdiva]

BitsduJour is offering the fantastic clipboard manager ClipMate for $19.95 today.  That's 43% off the normal price.  I've used ClipMate for many years--it's probably the piece of software I use most and can least do without.  I tried it after someone said to me, "Once you try it, you'll wonder how you ever got along without it."  She was right.

[Darwin]

Couldn't agree more, cyberdiva. ClipMate is definitely "can't do without software". Of course, there is also mouser's Clipboard Help+Spell. If  wasn't using ClipMate before I'd heard of Donationcoder, that's what I'd be using.

[tranglos]

Having tried all of the above and some others, I've become partial to Ditto myself. For largely formulaic technical translation I find it best, especially due to (a) snappy and clear interface, and (b) the blazing-fast incremental lookup. I also love how it automatically positions itself next to where the caret is, doing its best not to obscure the insertion point in text.

I wish someone would recompile Ditto (C++, open source) to remove the superfluous networking feature and to use a bigger font for the incremental search string display, but besides those, it's perfect.

For anyone still looking at clipboard extenders, ClipMate at BdJ today is a really great deal, of course.

[invenit]

BitsduJour is offering the fantastic clipboard manager ClipMate for $19.95 today.

-cyberdiva (September 04, 2009, 07:53 AM)

Thanks for the heads up. I'm still using ClipMate v4.5 on my WinXP box. 

It may be time for an upgrade.

[rjbull]

I've become partial to Ditto myself.

-tranglos (September 04, 2009, 09:25 AM)

Does Ditto use the JET database engine?  I've been wary of JET because Zhorn Software's popular sticky notes program Stickies uses it, and won't run stably on my old Win98SE laptop  (yes, one day I'll have to set up the Vista laptop...)

[tranglos]

Does Ditto use the JET database engine? 

-rjbull (September 04, 2009, 04:03 PM)

No, it uses SQLite, lightweight and fast. I've never encountered a problem with the db. There are free and commercial apps to browse SQLite databases in case it's ever necessary, for example SQLiteSpy.

[Curt]

I think history proves it extremely difficult for code authors to understand how my clipboard should work! More than 90 percent of all my clips are "copy and paste and forever forget", in order to rename picture and audio files. I really don't care if a clipboard is able to save this and 499 other clips, for aeons.

But of course, history also proves that I really don't have the brains or take the time to learn how use the various clipboards that I already own licenses for.... Why can't these authors just write it the way I want it, the first time, so I don't have to purchase yet another clipboard?




Thanks for telling about Ditto, at least that one is free! 
 

-
Sorry, I just needed to get something off my chest.  

[rjbull]

@tranglos:
Thanks.  I found Ditto won't run on my Win98SE laptop, missing DLL.  Yet another reason to face setting up the Vista one 

@Curt:
You forgot ArsClip, CHS, CLCL, ClipCache and MiniCLIP
Most of the clipboard enhancers have a feature to automatically delete messages by number and/or by age.  You only have to set that up once.  Some can be set to ignore clips coming from certain programs, which is great for ignoring clips from e.g. password keepers.

[Darwin]

@Curt:
You forgot ArsClip, CHS, CLCL, ClipCache and MiniCLIP

-rjbull (September 06, 2009, 10:28 AM)

ClipCache is right there in the screenshot 

[Curt]

@Curt:
You forgot ArsClip, CHS, CLCL, ClipCache and MiniCLIP

-rjbull (September 06, 2009, 10:28 AM)

I did test ArsClip some years ago, but of course skipped it again because of the lack of genuine Unicode support. Now I see that joejoe the jackass finally implemented Unicode, so I might try it again. Thanks for reminding me!

I am not too sure about the other names, besides ClipCache of course - CLCL has not even been updated for Vista.

[Curt]

@Curt:

Most of the clipboard enhancers have a feature to automatically delete messages by number and/or by age.  You only have to set that up once.  Some can be set to ignore clips coming from certain programs, which is great for ignoring clips from e.g. password keepers.

-rjbull (September 06, 2009, 10:28 AM)

Thanks, rjbull. What I really want is one more hotkey, for copying. So if I press the normal set of hotkeys, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, it will make a normal Copy&Paste&Forget, but if I copy by pressing the other hotkey, it will Copy&RememberForEver. Maybe they all can do this already, but as I implied, I don't tend to figure out what is not obviously.

[tranglos]

Thanks, rjbull. What I really want is one more hotkey, for copying. So if I press the normal set of hotkeys, Ctrl+C and Ctrl+V, it will make a normal Copy&Paste&Forget, but if I copy by pressing the other hotkey, it will Copy&RememberForEver. Maybe they all can do this already, but as I implied, I don't tend to figure out what is not obviously.

-Curt (September 06, 2009, 04:02 PM)

This may not be possible to do reliably. When you press Ctrl+C, it is not the clipboard extender that does the copying - it's always the app you are working with. Windows then notifies the extender that something new has been put on the clipboard, so the extender can grab it. But at that point the extender cannot know what keys you pressed.

In order to achieve what you want, the extender would intercept your "special" keypress, but how would it tell the app you're working with to do a copy now? There are several ways, from posting a WM_COPY message to faking a Ctrl+C keypress, but they aren't 100% reliable. It would work some of the time, maybe most of the time, but sometimes it would fail and cause frustration.

Let me reverse the question: why would you want to bother yourself with having to decide whether you'll need a clip later or not? Why would you want to stop and think about it (even if for a split second) every time you are about to press Ctrl+C? Let the computer worry about that, I say!

The solution for me was to pick a clipboard extender where there is no penalty for storing lots of useless clips. One brain-dead program I absolutely must use for my work (since it's an "industry standard", no less) uses the clipboard for its internal operation. As a result, every sentence I translate ends up on the clipboard and in Ditto's database. Useless, yes, but it's not a problem at all, since Ditto is really fast, the db is not kept in RAM, and it has an instant incremental search which narrows down the selection to the letters I type. So I can bring back the clip I need by typing faster than I would through scrolling and eyeing the list. I just stopped worrying about the crud in the database, since it doesn't cause any problems really.

[Curt]

- hmm... I will have to think more thoroughly about this. Thanks for explaining!

It just feels so silly to have a bunch of clipboards but 90+ percent, maybe even 99 % of the time not use any of them for more than the Windows clipboard can do.

[rjbull]

every sentence I translate ends up on the clipboard and in Ditto's database. Useless, yes, but it's not a problem at all, since Ditto is really fast, the db is not kept in RAM

-tranglos (September 06, 2009, 06:44 PM)

tranglos, as I said, some programs like ArsClip and CHS allow you to ignore clips coming from certain programs.  That way you could ignore your "industry standard" program.  Does Ditto allow ignoring?

[tranglos]

tranglos, as I said, some programs like ArsClip and CHS allow you to ignore clips coming from certain programs.  That way you could ignore your "industry standard" program.  Does Ditto allow ignoring?

-rjbull (September 07, 2009, 11:38 AM)

Well, it's a long story, but it's not as as simple as that. The program interfaces with Word (through a huge honking encrypted template), and when you work, you work inside Word, while the program displays information in its own window on the side. So I would have to be ignoring Word in Ditto - and that would be rather self-defeating

To answer your question - no, I'm surprised to see Ditto does not provide a way to ignore certain apps. That's bad, I know!

[rjbull]

I would have to be ignoring Word in Ditto - and that would be rather self-defeating

-tranglos (September 07, 2009, 11:58 AM)

Sounds like a great "reason" for low productivity   

To answer your question - no, I'm surprised to see Ditto does not provide a way to ignore certain apps.

It should, indeed...