glubsy / clipfdb

Automatically look up clipboard content for a match into a VVV firebird database

This is a hack around Clipster, with the added functionality to automatically search local databases for text received from the "CLIPBOARD" clipboard (Linux with Xorg only). This is achieved via a simple hook added to clipster.

How to use

1. Create one or more Firebird databases with VVV (Virtual Volume View)

2. Copy the default config file clipfdb.conf into ~/.config/clipfdb/. Edit it to point to the directory holding security2.fdb, as well as your databases and credentials.

3. Install required dependencies. Either system-wide or in a venv like this:

pip install virtualenv && virtualenv -p python3 --system-site-packages venv
source ./venv/bin/activate
pip install -r requirements.txt

1. start start_daemon.sh, preferably with a key binding to toggle it on/off. The Clipster client can also be used as usual. For example in i3 config file:

bindsym $mod+Shift+i exec --no-startup-id "/path/to/clipfdb/start_daemon.sh --venv --no-terminal-output --toggle"
bindsym $mod+c exec --no-startup-id "/path/to/clipfdb/clipster/clipster -sc"

The shell script can be started with argument --venv to automatically find and activate a python venv.

The --toggle switch will pause/resume clipfdb, and will not quit Clipster. However, calling the start_daemon.sh script without this flag will quit Clipster.

Files which have been found in the databases will be either printed to terminal (if started from one and is not suppressed by argument --no-terminal-output) or/and simply displayed as a notification through your notification server of choice (dunst, xfce4-notifyd, etc.) with optional sound effect.

Options can be overridden via command-line arguments.

Note: the configuration for Clipster is still valid and and used. It should be in ~/.config/clipster/clipster.ini.

Dependencies

These can be installed automatically with pip install -r -requirements.txt:

• The Firebird super-server, preferrably a version compatible with the databases created by VVV (most likely 2.5 currently).

• The Firebird python driver fdb or fdb_embedded. But note that it seems to be deprecated. It's kept as a submodule here for the time being, clone this repo with --recurse and get ready to fix it yourself.

• desktop-notify (optional) or notify-send and a notification daemon (ie. dunst). Warning: might also require dbus python bindings, pacman -S python-dbus in Arch Linux.

• simpleaudio (optional) or paplay to play sound notifications. Actually any process can be called in place of paplay.

Tips

Create config directory ~/.config/clipfdb/ and copy clipfdb.conf.

Configure dunst for colored output depending on results. Example below, disables icon, makes body bold and green / red on found / nothing found

[clipfdb_found]
    category = "clipfdb_found"
    background = "#005500"
    foreground = "#ffffff"
    format = "%s\n<b>%b</b>"
    new_icon = off

[clipfdb_notfound]
    category = "clipfdb_notfound"
    background = "#550000"
    foreground = "#ffffff"
    format = "%s\n<b>%b</b>"
    new_icon = off

TODO

• Allow multiple lines to be parsed in turn (remove splitting on the first newline).
• Enqueue requests for several rapid fire clipboard copies.
• Try not to rely on clipster anymore, especially for future Wayland support.
• Write a module to generate Firebird SQL databases ourselves.
• Allow other SQL databases through API abstraction layer.