Clipboard Stacks

[gb2]

These shortcuts provide the venerable text stack functionality that was originally available in the Classic version of QuicKeys for Mac. It allows you to copy many text items in order and retrieve them again in the same or reverse order.

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Scopes:  All Applications
Author:  llee
 Added:  December 16, 2009

[bakari45]

I almost got the hang of this, but could you explain some how it works? I see Stack Build, Stack Pop, and Stack Pull, but not quite sure how they function. I got it work some, but a brief how-to would help.

[llee]

It's like a multiple clipboard utility for text, except that once you use a clip, it's gone. Maybe you could think of it as a PEZ dispenser, except that it can dispense a piece of candy from the bottom as well as from the top, and you have to fill it one piece at a time and it can be filled only from the top. The Stack Build shortcut takes any selected text and copies it to the clipboard, then adds it to the next available position on top of the virtual "text candy" stack (it's stored as a QK variable). The capacity for this particular dispenser is 10. The Stack Pop takes the top piece of text candy, inserts it wherever your cursor happens to be when you trigger the shortcut, and removes it from the stack. Stack Pull does the same with the bottom piece of text candy. The pop and pull act like paste except with regard to the stack itself which gets depleted by one item when either pop or pull is triggered. Pop and pull do not incorporate the clipboard, so if you can build your stack early during whatever workflow you need it for, your clipboard will be free to use while the stack items are sitting there waiting for you. I haven't tried to modify Clipboard Stacks to work completely independently from the clipboard, although it may now be possible. To work as intended, the shortcuts should all have universal scope.

[bakari45]

Got it, llee. This great because I'm always copying and pasting stuff and if I can copy a series of items before I start pasting, that's a serious time saver. I'm wondering I could somehow get your shortcuts into Snow Leopard's Services so I can right-click and access them? If you don't mind, I might do an video about this shortcut. I really think it will help others understand it quicker.

P.S. After using this some more, I'm wondering if there's a way to stick in a return key shortcut after each paste? QuicKeys is making me so lazy.

[llee]

Well, you can create an AppleScript that launches any QK shortcut and you could incorporate that into any Service workflow, but you might have to be careful about how that affects scope. I haven't tried it with these because it seems more logical to me to trigger them using one of QK's methods. If you have too many shortcuts to remember, or you're running out of modifier key combinations to make management easy, why don't you consider using Toolbars, SoftKeys, or even just telling QK to sit in the dock and adding the items to the QK Dock menu.

[bakari45]

If you have too many shortcuts to remember, or you're running out of modifier key combinations to make management easy, why don't you consider using Toolbars, SoftKeys, or even just telling QK to sit in the dock and adding the items to the QK Dock menu.

I don't quite have too many shortcuts, but for a few applications I've used the QuicKeys toolbar features which works well for automating parts of an app to get things done faster. thanx