Filed under: iPhone, Jailbreak/pwnage
Clippy brings copy/paste to jailbroken iPhones
Those with jailbroken iPhones who use the Cydia package manager discovered a new add-on in the past day or so -- Clippy, from iSpazio, which introduces a method for copy and paste to the iPhone.According to users, the add-on inserts two buttons into the system keyboard -- one for copying and another for pasting. Those who have tried it out say that it only accepts user-entered text and copies over one line at a time, which can get cumbersome.
Sebastien over at the iPhone Download Blog gives a detailed overview of how the application works. "After installing the application, type any text you want and simply hit the "123″ button on your keyboard to show the copy/paste buttons. Tap "copy" and start selecting the text you want to copy. Tap "copy" again to end the selection. Then tap "paste" to paste this text where you want it to be." This implementation isn't up to Apple's standards for grace and ease, but it seems workable.
My iPhone isn't jailbroken, so I haven't had the chance to try out Clippy. If you've downloaded and had a chance to try out the app, please let us know your impression in the comments.
Thanks to all who submitted this!
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 3)
tom said 10:18AM on 1-20-2009
What's with the ugly keyboard?
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CharlesV said 10:27AM on 1-20-2009
You can install kb / ui widget themes on a jailbroken phone. By default, it's not nearly as ugly or out of place working... Just tried copying a url and pasting it in an email and it worked fine... only copying user entered text is kind of bunk, though, but i'll wait for future versions to pass judgement.
Scott said 10:40AM on 1-20-2009
It works decently. You can't paste into a text field in Safari (like posting on a forum) but in the address bar it works. But within email, notepad, etc it works pretty well!
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ktulaman said 3:47PM on 1-20-2009
@ Scott:
"You can't paste into a text field in Safari (like posting on a forum) "
I have no problem pasting into a text field in Safari (i tried ups.com and was able to paste a tracking number).
TheRealKerni said 10:45AM on 1-20-2009
It works decently. Moving within the text to correct something turns on marking the text, so this is more complicated now. Would be great if there would be a button to turn on/off marking explicitly
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Rudy said 10:57AM on 1-20-2009
it has a lot of potential, it just needs to be more universal.
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jer said 10:58AM on 1-20-2009
Crashes Beejive
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Peteo said 12:40PM on 1-20-2009
Update today seems to fix the beejive crashing and can now paste into safari input boxes!
Sebastian said 11:31AM on 1-20-2009
Not bad. Works nicely on my Iphone.
If it could select text in Safari it would be perfect.
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Dachaz said 11:34AM on 1-20-2009
Crashes quite a number of apps, doesn't work in some, partially removes the precision-positioning within text (as text gets selected, so, instead inserting text, selection gets overwritten, or app crashed).
Overall, long way til v1.0 but I reckon they'll make it.
I only hope they choose a different gesture for selection (i.e. keeping one finger pressed anywhere and slide-selecting with the other one).
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Jash Sayani said 10:24AM on 1-21-2009
Even I faced the problem with inserting text... But, Copy and Paste is much more useful......
Ryan S. said 11:44AM on 1-20-2009
For some reason, it's not showing up in Cydia for me. I'm looking at iSpazio, and it doesn't see anything. Could it be because I'm working off EDGE?
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Shunnabunich said 11:53AM on 1-20-2009
For an early version of this solution, it seems to work very well, so congratulations to the developer(s) who made it happen, and I hope to see further refinement in the future.
The method of selecting text, though, leaves something to be desired. Ideally, I'd like to be able to hold one finger in one place in the text, wait for it to bring up a loupe for proper positioning, then hold a second finger in another spot until a second loupe appears, with all text between them being selected. This way the gesture would be distinct from the regular gesture which simply positions the text cursor, and would provide just as much precision in selecting text.
It might not be feasible for selections that are less than two finger-widths long (when your fingers smush too close together, the iPhone/iPod touch tends to start thinking it's one finger), but anything that short would be easier to just retype than to copy and paste anyway. I just have no idea if it would be possible to invoke a second loupe in order to accomplish such a gesture, or if Apple's firmware only provides the means for one; I imagine only iPhone developers would know the answer to that.
What do you guys think; would two-loupe selection work better for you, or would it be too clunky with having to wait for each loupe to appear?
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+. said 2:15PM on 1-20-2009
i'd be afraid that positioning the second loupe would be a bit of a nightmare; you'd have to be fairly precise to hold one finger exactly straight (at the 1st end) & use a 2nd to point/position in another place.
i'd rather see a pop-up menu when you place (& possibly *hold*) the first loupe, where you can tell it to begin a copy/paste operation. at that point the first loupe would stay positioned, & you could freely move the 2nd to select whatever text you want. at the end of the 2nd-loupe selection, it would auto-copy. pasting could then be done with another push-hold-popup menu. this would also leave the terrible keyboard add-on out of the equation altogether---there are already enough buttons to negotiate down there.
of course, it all sounds better in theory than practice. & Clippy looks like a great start, even though i'm probably going to ignore it for now.
s73v3r said 4:06PM on 1-20-2009
This app fails for being called Clippy and not having an annoying paperclip mascot.
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Mason Sklut said 1:47PM on 1-20-2009
Looks like something Apple made — nice job iSpazio! Beats using PasteBud.
- Mason
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Apostol Apostolov said 2:07PM on 1-20-2009
Clippy is simply amazing, but they have to get rid of Copy and Paste words and change them with nice black and white icons to save space. I like how the copied text remains visible next to the commands. Next big thinkg would be multi-clipboard, optionally add 2-5 numbered buttons (modified via stadard jailbroken app or via Settings) next to Copy and Paste to allow for 2-5 different clipboard contents.
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Shunnabunich said 3:00PM on 1-20-2009
Or perhaps, instead of adding more buttons, simply have the user tap the copied text to see a menu of the available clippings.
Vision said 3:08PM on 1-20-2009
Just used it for UPS Tracking number from an email confirmation then pasted it to the web. This is a time saver.... Here is where is works best - wifi WAP/WEP code.
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tys said 1:35PM on 1-21-2009
Thanks for posting that! Pasting tracking numbers from emails is one of the main things I need copy/paste for, but based on some of the original comments I gathered that you couldn't copy text you didn't enter yourself and you couldn't paste into Safari text fields, but I've just installed Clippy and did just that!
The only "trick" is, as someone else mentioned is that you need to "reply" to the email to get the text in an editable form, then copy, then cancel the reply and then go paste wherever you need.
Very nice and useful hack that's going to save me a lot of time and should only get better with future updates!