Last year I set out to write up some articles on developer tools I use. Life happened and I never really got around to it :\ so to start off 2008 I thought I’d try again.
Today’s tool is a clipboard manager. What’s that you say? Windows already has a clipboard? Yes it does. But it sucks. You can only store one thing! With a clipboard manager you can cut several things, store them in memory, open a different application or page and then paste them all back. Some support having ‘permanent items’ always available to paste. Some support images.
Currently at work (Windows) I’m using a program called ArsClip and at home (Ubuntu) I’m using Glipper. Both are free and have a ton of useful features.
If you haven’t tried a clipboard manager I’d suggest giving one a try. It is not going to make a huge dent in your productivity but every little bit helps!
I’ve been using Ditto for several years and have been extremely happy with it. I was always hesitant to use a clipboard manager in the past, but I really need an efficient way to transfer the contents of my clipboard from my desktop and laptop–since I switch back and forth between the two quite frequently.
Ditto has excellent support for transferring a clipboards contents to other computers.
You can also save clipboard entries for quick retrieval–which is nice for stuff you’re constantly needing quick access to.
The most important thing is Ditto has been extremely stable and uses very little resources on my boxes.
I’ve sure there are more attractive solutions out there, but I really have come to rely on Ditto:
http://ditto-cp.sourceforge.net/