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1. Long As PictureDisp Read only Returns a Picture of the data held in Enhanced Metafile format Format cfEnhMetafile and referenced by the value Index Index 1 corresponds to the item most recently copied to the clipboard etc An empty picture is returned if there is no data held in this format for the given Index value Enabled As Boolean Indicates whether or not the control is currently watching the clipboard and collecting data Setting the value of Enabled is directly equivalent to calling the Activate or Deactivate methods Default False HasFormat ndex As Long Format As Long As Boolean Read only Indicates whether or not the data item referenced by Index is available in the specified Format HTML ndex As Long As String Read only Returns a text string of the data held in HTML Format Format cfHTML and referenced by the value Index Index 1 corresponds to the item most recently copied to the clipboard etc An empty string is returned if there is no data held in this format for the given Index value ImportBinary Data As Variant Format As Long Copies the contents of the variant array Data as a new data item to the control as if it had been collected from the clipboard The data format is given by Format ImportHTML HTMLData As String Copies the character string HTMLData as a new data item to the control in HTML Format as if it had been collected from the clipboard By using this method in conjuncti
2. text string of the data held in Rich Text Format Format cfRichText and referenced by the value Index Index 1 corresponds to the item most recently copied to the clipboard etc An empty string is returned if there is no data held in this format for the given Index value Text ndex As Long As String Read only Returns a text string of the data held in Plain text format Format cfText and referenced by the value Index Index 1 corresponds to the item most recently copied to the clipboard etc An empty string is returned if there is no data held in this format for the given Index value UnicodeText ndex As Long As String Read only Returns a Unicode text string of the data held in this format Format cfUnicodeText and referenced by the value Index Index 1 corresponds to the item most recently copied to the clipboard etc An empty string is returned if there is no data held in this format for the given Index value The String returned is actually in the OLE data type BSTR which is a string of double byte characters Note that some programming environments are not Unicode compliant and will interpret the string incorrectly as single byte ANSI characters thereby losing information WriteBinary ndex As Long Format As Long As Variant Writes the data held in the specified Format and referenced by the value Index as binary data to an OLE Variant array This array contains a sequence of bytes corresponding to the actu
3. Ciansoft ClipManagerX User Manual Introduction Ciansoft ClipManagerX is an ActiveX control that collects data from the Windows Clipboard and makes the data available to your application Using ClipManagerX you can e Retain all items that are copied to the clipboard with the Windows Clipboard only the last item to be copied is available e Collect data from any application running on the user s computer e Collect data in any clipboard format e Configure ClipManagerX to collect only the specific data types that you require e g collect text that is copied but not images For further information visit our website www ciansoft com Alternatively contact us by email we will be pleased to answer your questions info ciansoft com How to use these Instructions The use of ClipManagerX is described under the following headings e General Placing the control on a form activating and deactivating the control etc e Configuring the control to collect the required data e Retrieving data from the control At the end of these instructions is an alphabetical listing of all the methods and properties available We recommend that you first read the sections of the instructions describing the use of the control then look in the listing to find the specific syntax for the methods and properties to be used Links are provided in the main part of the instructions to take you directly to the required method or property If you ar
4. E 12 cfWAVE 12 WAVE Unicode Text CF_UNICODETEXT 13 cfUnicodeText 13 UnicodeText Enhanced CF_ENHMETAFILE 14 cfEnhMetafile 14 EMFPicture Metafile File List CF_HDROP 15 cfHDROP 15 Locale CF_LOCALE 16 cfLocale 16 Identifier Custom Formats Description Format Name TxClipboardFormat Property Constant Value Rich Text Format RTF Rich Text Format cfRichText 18 RichText HTML Format HTML Format cfHTML 19 HTML Deploying an Application In order to deploy an application that uses ClipManagerX you will need to distribute the OCX file ClipManagerX ocx together with the files that make up your application This file will need to be registered on the machine running your application and you may wish to use a proprietary installer to do this When ClipManagerX was installed on your system our installer will have copied the OCX file to the directory Program Files Ciansoft ClipManagerX assuming you used the installer and accepted the defaults The number of copies of the OCX file that may be distributed is not limited by the licence In order to use the control in a design environment the licence file ClipManagerX_lic is also required A separate licensed copy of ClipManagerX is required for each computer it is used on in the design environment Revision History The current version of ClipManagerX is 2 1 New in Version 2 0 Support for all standard and custom clipboard formats CopyToClipboard metho
5. Format method for removing a format from the list and the ClearFormats method for emptying the list Data Retrieval There are four alternative ways to retrieve items of data from ClipManagerX These are e By copying back to the Windows clipboard using the CopyToClipboard method then pasting from the clipboard In many cases this is the simplest way to retrieve data as it may not require any knowledge of how the receiving application interprets the data There is an example of this on the Ciansoft website at http www ciansoft com samples cmxword1 htm in which data in Rich Text Format RTF is pasted into a MS Word document It is not necessary for the programmer to know anything about the structure of RTF or know anything about how Word stores its data This is the slowest method as it involves the data being copied in memory twice once from ClipManagerX to the clipboard once from the clipboard to the application However this loss of performance is unimportant in most applications e By accessing a read only property specific to the required data format These properties are available only for a limited range of possible formats The available properties are Format Property Plain Text Text Unicode Text UnicodeText Bitmap BMPpPicture Enhanced Metafile _EMFPicture Rich Text RichText HTML HTML e By using the DataHandle property to obtain a Handle to the data object in memory If ClipManagerX is used in a pr
6. al memory contents If the requested format or index is not available the return value will be 0 This method is a function and must be called by assigning to a variable For example in VB the syntax would be of the form VariantName WriteBinary 4 2 This would write the 4 oldest data item to a variant array using the Bitmap 2 format Events The following events are raised by the control OnNewData This event occurs when the control reads a new item of data from the clipboard OnClipboard This event occurs when any data is copied to the clipboard from any application regardless of whether or not ClipManagerX collects that data About Clipboard Formats Most Windows applications provide some kind of cut copy paste functionality that makes use of the clipboard Whenever a piece of data is copied it is stored on the clipboard and can then be pasted into a new location in either the same or a different application Copying data to the clipboard erases any existing data so the clipboard can only ever hold the last item copied The copied data can be anything text a picture a sound clip etc Depending on the type of data one of many different clipboard formats will be used to store the data An application placing data on the clipboard can use many different formats so that the application receiving the data has many choices for how the data can be read Windows operating systems support several standard cli
7. d DataHandle property RichText property TxClipboardFormat enumeration for use in AddFormat method Methods AddFormatByNum and AddFormatByName New in Version 2 1 HTML property CollectOnActivate property ImportRichText ImportHTML ImportText and ImportBinary methods
8. d using the MaxItems property When the control is full of data as defined by MaxItems new data copied to the clipboard will still be collected but the oldest data item will be deleted to make space available The number of data items at any time can be found using the Count property All the data held by the control can be deleted by using the Clear method Multiple instances of the control can be used simultaneously if required Configuration The Windows Clipboard can hold data in many different formats These include standard formats which are defined in the Windows operating system plus custom formats which are defined by installed applications and which may be able to be read by other applications A single data item copied to the clipboard can be stored simultaneously in several different formats with an application that receives the data choosing the most appropriate format to use for reading ClipManagerX supports all Windows clipboard formats both standard and custom When ClipManagerX has been activated to receive data it can be configured to receive and store only those formats required by the user First the AllFormats property defines whether all possible formats will be collected If this property is set to False then a list of formats stored by the control will determine the behaviour This list is managed by using the AddFormat AddFormatByName or AddFormatByNum methods for adding a new format to the list the Remove
9. e This is the value that must be passed as an argument in any properties or methods dealing with formats e g the AddFormatByNum method Note that custom formats also have an integer value but this is not fixed and must be obtained by calling either the AddFormat or AddFormatByName method TxClipboardFormat The enumerated constant used by ClipManagerX to identify this format The integer value corresponding to the TxClipboardFormat enumeration Note that this must not be confused with the integer value used by Windows even though for standard formats these are the same Property The name of the ClipManagerX property that provides direct access for retrieval of data in this format Format Name Custom formats only The string used to identify this format This is needed if the AddFormatByName method is to be used Standard Formats Description Windows Name Integer TxClipboardFormat Property Value Constant Value Plain text CF_TEXT 1 cfText 1 Text Bitmap CF_BITMAP 2 cfBitmap 2 BMPPicture Windows CF_METAFILEPICT 3 cfMetafile 3 Metafile Symbolic Link CF_SYLK 4 cfSYLK 4 Format SYLK Data CF_DIF 5 cfDIF 5 Interchange Format DIF Tagged Image CF_TIFF 6 cfTIFF 6 File Format TIFF OEM Text CF_OEMTEXT 7 cfOEMText 7 Device CF_DIB 8 cfDIB 8 Independent Bitmap Colour Palette CF_PALETTE 9 cfPalette 9 Pen extensions CF_PENDATA 10 cfPenData 10 Audio Data CF_RIFF 11 cfRIFF 11 RIFF Audio Data CF_WAV
10. e new to programming with the clipboard read the section About Clipboard Formats which contains useful background information Installation The OCX file ClipManagerX ocx must be registered on the computer running the application This should be done during the installation but if it is not the command line utility Regsvr32 exe can be used This is usually found in the Windows system folder and runs using the syntax regsvr32 ocxname where ocxname is the path and name of the ocx file to register When deploying an application that uses ClipManagerX the ocx file will also need to be registered on the target machine Note that the licence file ClipManagerX lic is needed to use this control in a design environment and this file must not be distributed with an application as is confirmed in your licence agreement To use this control in a Visual Basic project select Project and Components from the pull down menu This gives a list of available controls Select ClipManagerX Library and click Apply This adds the control to the component palette The class name is ClipMan and this will appear in the Object Browser where the properties and methods are listed For other design environments consult the documentation for importing ActiveX controls As an ActiveX control ClipManagerX can be used in a range of Windows based environments and languages There will be slight differences in syntax especially with object creation and the
11. ictureDisp Read only Returns a Picture of the data held in Bitmap format Format cfBitmap and referenced by the value Index Index 1 corresponds to the item most recently copied to the clipboard etc An empty picture is returned if there is no data held in this format for the given Index value Clear Deletes all data from the control ClearFormats Removes all formats from the list of formats that will be collected by the control The list of formats will be cleared regardless of the value of AllFormats but if AllFormats is True the list is not used CollectOnActivate As Boolean If set to True the control will collect the contents of the clipboard immediately when the Activate method is called Otherwise nothing is collected until the first copy action that occurs after activation Default False CopyToClipboard ndex As Long Format As Long Copies the data item referenced by Index and in the specified Format back to the Windows clipboard ClipManagerX is temporarily deactivated during this process so that a duplicate copy of the data is not collected Count As Long Read only The number of data items currently stored in the control DataHandle ndex As Long Format As Long As Long Read only Returns a Handle to the data item referenced by Index and in the specified Format Format is the Windows clipboard format number as used by AddFormatByNum or as returned by AddFormat or AddFormatByName For most f
12. ogramming environment which supports pointers e g MS Visual C or Borland Delphi the DataHandle property enables the user to obtain a pointer to an object in memory In programming environments which do not support pointers e g Visual Basic the DataHandle property is difficult to use and the WriteBinary method should be used instead e By writing binary data to an OLE variant array using the WriteBinary method The OLE variant created by this method is an array of bytes containing the data In all cases an Index value is referenced to determine which data item is retrieved The Index value of the most recent item copied is 1 the next most recent is 2 etc Complete Listing of Properties and Methods Activate Starts watching the Windows Clipboard and collecting all data copied to the clipboard subject to the configuration of chosen formats AddFormat Format As TxClipboardFormat As Long Adds a clipboard format indicated by the value Format to the list of formats that will be collected by the control The possible values for Format are given in the Format Summary Table at the end of these instructions The list of formats will be updated regardless of the value of AllFormats but if AllFormats is True the list is not used This method is a function which returns the integer value used by Windows to reference this clipboard format This return value should always be assigned to a variable as it will be needed later when ret
13. on with CopyToClipboard ClipManagerX can be used to transfer the contents of a string variable to the clipboard for pasting into an application ImportRichText R7FData As String Copies the character string RTF Data as a new data item to the control in Rich Text Format as if it had been collected from the clipboard By using this method in conjunction with CopyToClipboard ClipManagerX can be used to transfer the contents of a string variable to the clipboard for pasting into an application ImportText TextData As String Copies the character string TextData as a new data item to the control in plain Text Format as if it had been collected from the clipboard By using this method in conjunction with CopyToClipboard ClipManagerX can be used to transfer the contents of a string variable to the clipboard for pasting into an application Maxltems As Long Sets the maximum number of data items that can be stored in the control This must be set to a value between 1 and 65535 If a new data item is collected which would cause Count to exceed MaxItems the oldest data item is deleted to make space Default 32 RemoveFormat Format As Long Removes a clipboard format indicated by the integer Format from the list of formats that will be collected by the control The list of formats will be updated regardless of the value of AllFormats but if AllFormats is True the list is not used RichText ndex As Long As String Read only Returns a
14. ormats the return value is a Handle to a Global memory object HGLOBAL This can be accessed by using the Windows API function GlobalLock and related functions In a few cases the return value will be a Handle to the specific object type These cases are Format Handle Type cfBitmap HBITMAP cfEnhMetafile HMETAFILE The return value is zero if the requested data is unavailable e g a format is specified for which no data was collected Deactivate Stops the control from collecting data Note that calling the Deactivate method does not delete any data currently stored in the control All data will remain available for retrieval unless the Clear method is called DelayMode As Long Delay in milliseconds between data being copied to the clipboard and being retrieved by ClipManagerX Under normal circumstances this should always be set to zero In this mode ClipManagerX responds immediately to retrieve data whenever a new item of data is copied to the clipboard When using ClipManagerX with Microsoft Word 2000 and later versions a crash can occur when deleting text from Word that has previously been copied to the clipboard This problem can be prevented by setting DelayMode to a positive value for example 10 This ensures that Word is not attempting to delete data at the same time that ClipManagerX is reading the same data This is the only situation in which a non zero value should be used Default 0 EMFPicture ndex As
15. pboard formats These mainly cover common data structures such as plain text bitmap images etc In addition custom formats can be defined by an application Some of these formats will be very specialised but many are common and are used by many different applications e g rich text format used by word processors Despite being common this is still a custom format meaning that its definition is not part of the core Windows operating system When programming with the clipboard each format is referred to by an integer value which identifies it For the standard formats these values are fixed For the custom formats the value is assigned by the operating system when an application first registers the format so the value can be different every time the format is used on a different computer or even on the same computer at a different time Format Summary Table This table summarises the standard Windows clipboard formats and also some of the commonly encountered custom formats It is not a complete list of formats supported by this control as ClipManagerX will support any clipboard format The following information is included in the table Description Windows Name Standard formats only The name used by the Windows API for this format This name may be recognised in some programming environments allowing it to be used in place of the integer value Integer Value Standard formats only The value corresponding to the Windows API nam
16. rieving data from the control AddFormatByName Format As String As Long Adds a clipboard format with the name given by Format to the list of formats that will be collected by the control The name is not case sensitive but must be spelled exactly right including any spaces The list of formats will be updated regardless of the value of AllFormats but if AllFormats is True the list is not used This method is a function which returns the integer value used by Windows to reference this clipboard format This return value should always be assigned to a variable as it will be needed later when retrieving data from the control AddFormatByNum Format As Long Adds a clipboard format indicated by the integer Format to the list of formats that will be collected by the control Format is the clipboard format number used by Windows For standard clipboard formats this is a fixed number but for custom clipboard formats it will have been assigned at the time the format was registered on the system and will vary The list of formats will be updated regardless of the value of AllFormats but if AllFormats is True the list is not used AllFormats As Boolean If set to True the control will collect data in any of the supported formats Otherwise the formats to be used are determined by the format list using the AddFormat AddFormatByName AddFormatByNum RemoveFormat and ClearFormats methods Default True BMPPicture ndex As Long As P
17. use of parentheses brackets surrounding method parameters The Trial Version The trial version of ClipManagerX is supplied as a different OCX file called ClipManagerXTrial ocx and has a separate installation programme The trial version has all the functionality of the full version of the control The only limitation is that it has a trial period of 30 days starting from the first use of the control After 30 days of use the control will be unable to be activated and a message will be displayed explaining that the trial period has ended Visit www ciansoft com to purchase the full version General The ClipManagerX control is used in an application simply by placing or dragging a copy of the control onto a form At design time the control is visible as an icon on the form but at run time it will be invisible To start collecting data the control must be activated by calling the Activate method Once activated ClipManagerX will continuously watch the Windows Clipboard and will collect data that is copied to the clipboard from any application This will continue until the Deactivate method is called Once it is activated and collecting data ClipManagerX can collect up to 65535 separate data items with each of these possibly being stored in more than one format In practice this could result in the control using too much of the system resources memory so the maximum number of data items to be held at any one time should be specifie

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