There, I Clipped It

What Is This?

There, I Clipped It is a lightweight, cross-platform, and thoroughly UNHOLY amalgam of scripts, tools, and configuration settings that make it EASY to INSTANTLY squirt your clipboard from your iOS devices to your computers and vice versa.

I made it because it was fun to do, and in order to avoid having to be LOCKED IN to any of the numerous commercial solutions for this problem¹.

It is named in homage to the meme wherein repairs are made in an inelegant but effective style. If There, I Clipped It existed outside of your computing device, it would consist entirely of gaffer tape and odd bits of cardboard.

^{1: Read: because I am a cheapskate.}

How Does It Work?

Squirting the iOS Clipboard to a Computer

You invoke the There, I Clipped It shortcut in the Shortcuts app. It asks you which of your computers you want your clipboard to be SQUIRTED to. It then saves the contents of your clipboard to a file in your Dropbox. The corresponding computer, which is watching like a HAWK for that file to be created (via launchd), then runs a Python script to replace your clipboard with the file's contents. A Growl notification pops up to inform you your clipboard is ready to SATE your PASTE-FURY.

(Windows does not include a method of creating watch folders as part of the operating system. It's possible to create a program that carries out this task, but one of the reasons I decided to write There, I Clipped It, was because I didn't want to have a dedicated program running 24/7 just to provide this functionality. As such, in order to copy the newly received clipboard contents, you must manually initiate the copy with a keyboard shortcut: Ctrl+Alt+C)

Squirting Your Computer's Clipboard to iOS

You press a keyboard shortcut². This invokes the There, I Clipped It Service, which runs a Python script that reads your clipboard and sends it to your iOS device as a push notification (via the Pushover app). When your iOS device pings, you open the notification and tap on a link, which runs a script in the Pythonista app that STUFFS the copied text into your your iOS clipboard.

^{2: I'm using Command+Option+Ctrl+V on OS X and Ctrl+Alt+V on Windows.}

Sounds Good; I Want It.

You really don't.

Whilst I use it on several computers, and it works, There, I Clipped It is PRE-ALPHA quality software. The code — written in Python by a programmer who has only recently started learning that language — is of SUSPECT quality, there are NO unit tests, and NO Q.A. professionals (or, indeed, testers of any kind) have vetted it.

There is at least a 70% chance that There, I Clipped It will FORMAT your hard drive and email ABUSE to your boss and/or parole officer.

Oh, and it only works for text.

I Don't Care. I Want It. How Do I Get It?

Okay, fine. First, you need to make sure you own/fulfil the following requirements:

An iOS device with the following apps installed:

For sending clipboards from phone to computer:
- Shortcuts (née Workflow)
For sending clipboards from computer to phone:
- Pushover
- Pythonista
At least one computer with Python 3 and pip installed.
(Optional) Growl
A Dropbox account.

Installation on a Computer

Obtain the scripts, placing them in your Dropbox:

cd ~/Dropbox
git clone https://github.com/sedm0784/thereiclippedit.git

(Optional, recommended) Create a new virtualenv and activate it.

Run the installation script:

cd thereiclippedit
./install_thereiclippedit.py -u YOUR_PUSHOVER_USER_KEY -c THE_COMPUTER_NAME

In a Windows command prompt, the command above may not work, and instead you may need to invoke Python 3 manually:

python install_thereiclippedit.py -u YOUR_PUSHOVER_USER_KEY -c THE_COMPUTER_NAME

That Sounds a Bit Dodge. What Does the Installation Script Do?

Installs the Python requirements: requests, pyperclip, and gntp,
OS X: Configures and installs the launchd plist to the location: ~/Library/LaunchAgents/
OS X: Configures and installs the There, I Clipped It Automator workflow as a Service. (in ~/Library/Services/
OS X: GENTLY reminds you (where) to set up a keyboard shortcut in System Preferences in order to invoke There, I Clipped It quickly.
Windows: Configures and installs shortcuts for pushing and pulling your clipboard to your "Programs" folder. The push shortcut has the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+V and the pull shortcut has the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Alt+C. If you want to use different shortcuts, you can edit them by right-clicking on the installed shortcut files and selecting "Properties".

iOS Installation

Install the There, I Clipped It Push Clipboard shortcut,
(Optional, recommended) Set up some method of firing off the shortcut quickly. I added a shortcut to the Launch Center Pro app, but you could create a home screen shortcut or Today view widget if you prefer.
Get the grab_clipboard.py script into Pythonista. The obvious way would be to whizz it on over into your iOS clipboard with There, I Clipped It, but there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg situation going on there. Sorry, you're on your own for this one. Worst-case scenario you're just going to have to type it in.
Bonus feature! In order to squirt directly from iOS apps, install the There, I Clipped It action extension for Text and the There, I Clipped In action extension for URLs. There are two separate extensions so that you can ensure the correct type is passed from the app to Shortcuts. e.g. when squirting directly from Safari, you may want sometimes to squirt the content of the page (Text) and other times to squirt its address (URL).

Roadmap

As far as I'm concerned, There, I Clipped It is COMPLETE, because it Works for Me™. However, there are some things that could be added:

The requirements list is both SPECIFIC and ONEROUS. I selected the various tools simply because those were the ones I already had installed, but There, I Clipped It is conceptually pretty simple, and each of the tools used has any number of possible replacements. It might be nice to implement some alternatives (e.g. Launch Center Pro instead of Shortcuts, Prowl instead of Pushover) and allow the use of these.
Distribution: the contents of the repository could be made available as a zip file.
Configurable sharedboards location: the advantage of storing everything in Dropbox is that you only have to download/clone it once. However, you might reasonably be reluctant to clutter up your Dropbox with the entire tool. It should be possible to only have the sharedboards folder within Dropbox.
Might be nice to offer notifications using OS X's Notification Center instead of Growl.
You currently have to inform There, I Clipped It of your Pushover User Key during installation. Pushover offers a feature which automates this, so users don't even have to see the UNGAINLY key. My predicted audience of There, I Clipped It is zero, but if it turns out more people use it than expected, I might look into this one.
When sending text from an iOS device, you can pick a destination, but when sending text from a computer, it is broadcast to all your iOS devices. This is how I like it, but Pushover allows you to specify a destination: maybe you would like There, I Clipped It to, also.
I should probably better document the contents of the repository. What everything does and how it all works.

sedm0784 / thereiclippedit