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My new choice of clipboard manager: parcellite

bgstack15

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I used CopyQ, but there is some sort of bug in QT-based projects where it doesn't accept keyboard input; it's like it doesn't receive focus until you minimize or maximize or some baloney that finally got me irritated enough to do something about it. Maybe I'll check CopyQ in the future, in case the bugs are ever solved or something. I have never researched this with any results; perhaps I don't know how to explain the phenomenon.

Anyway, I settled on parcellite for the time being. Let's face it; I'm not doing any more research so this is going to be my long-term clipboard solution. It's gtk3-based, which is my current stack anyways. It has all the options I want: a popup menu of history options, with pinnable entries (called persistent entries in this tech), and is already packaged for Devuan.

Notes on other clipboard managers

It appears that diodon and gpaste are forks or spiritual successors to parcellite. Gpaste is the freedesktop-ified thing with a daemon and complicated features that just seem extraneous, yet is still missing features I want.

Raw notes for research process

  1. determine goals
    1. ctrl+shift+z pulls up short history menu, approx 5.
    2. full history available from a window from a menu option
  2. find options
    1. checking https://wiki.archlinux.org/title/Clipboard?useskin=vector
    2. already packaged for Devuan is a huge plus
    3. packagable for devuan is acceptable
  3. test top option(s)
    1. diodon: works basically. No "full history" dialog, and no pinning of items.
    2. gpaste: way more complicated, but has an editable history, from gpaste-client ui. SCARY "upload" feature that does what?
    3. parcellite (github or sourceforge)

My current desired config

Here is my current ~/.config/parcellite/parcelliterc file as of the time of this writing.

files/2025/listings/parcelliterc (Source)

[rc]
RCVersion=1
use_copy=true
use_primary=false
synchronize=false
save_history=true
history_pos=false
history_x=1
history_y=1
history_limit=25
data_size=0
item_size=5
automatic_paste=true
auto_key=true
auto_mouse=false
key_input=false
restore_empty=true
rc_edit=true
type_search=true
case_search=false
ignore_whiteonly=false
trim_wspace_begend=false
trim_newline=false
hyperlinks_only=false
confirm_clear=true
current_on_top=true
single_line=true
reverse_history=false
item_length=50
persistent_history=true
persistent_separate=false
persistent_on_top=false
persistent_delim=\\n
nonprint_disp=false
ellipsize=2
multi_user=true
icon_name=parcellite
menu_key=
history_key=<CTRL><SHIFT>Z
phistory_key=<CTRL><ALT>Z
actions_key=

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