MJ - When working on Linux I used the Ion3 [L1 ] window manager, which has a very handy feature called a scratchpad. Pressing a specific key combination will popup or hide the scratchpad, allowing you to copy and paste small snippets of text.
On Windows I usually start notepad for similar purposes, but starting notepad all the time gets tedious very quickly. Below a small script that will create a scratchpad that will appear on Win-Space and hide in the tray on Ctrl-Win-Space.
Ctrl-j can be used to execute the current line in the interpreter.
The KHIM (optional), twapi, winico and dde extensions are required. Add a sp.ico file in the script directory. This will be used for the tray icon.
package require twapi package require dde package require Winico catch { package require khim set khim::composeKey App ::khim::RedoBindings } proc show {} { wm deiconify . raise . focus .txt } proc checkRunning {} { set topicName scratchpad set otherServices [dde services TclEval $topicName] if { [llength $otherServices] > 0 } { dde execute TclEval $topicName { show } exit } else { dde servername $topicName } } proc cbTaskbar {msg} { if {$msg eq "WM_LBUTTONDOWN"} { if {[winfo ismapped .]} { wm withdraw . } else { show } } } wm protocol . WM_DELETE_WINDOW { wm withdraw . } proc main {} { global icon checkRunning overrideCommands # start minimized wm withdraw . # import mathops to make more usable as calculator namespace import ::tcl::mathop::* set iconfile [file dirname [info script]]/sp.ico set icon [winico createfrom $iconfile] wm iconbitmap . $iconfile wm iconbitmap . -default $iconfile wm title . Scratchpad winico taskbar add $icon -callback {cbTaskbar %m} -text Scratchpad ::twapi::register_hotkey Win-Space show ::twapi::register_hotkey Ctrl-Win-Space {wm withdraw .} text .txt -font {Fixedsys 10} -yscrollcommand {.vbar set} -undo 1 scrollbar .vbar -orient vertical -command {.txt yview} grid .txt -sticky nsew -row 0 -column 0 grid .vbar -sticky ns -row 0 -column 1 grid columnconfigure . 0 -weight 1 grid rowconfigure . 0 -weight 1 bind . <Key-F5> {console show} # define Emacs bindings bindtags .txt [linsert [bindtags .txt] 1 KHIM Emacs] set ::prefix 0 bind Emacs <Key-h> {if {$::prefix} {%W tag add sel 1.0 end ; break}} bind Emacs <Control-x> {set ::prefix 1 ; after 2000 {set ::prefix 0} ; break} bind Emacs <Control-j> { if {![catch {eval [%W get {insert linestart} {insert lineend}]} result]} { set ::_ $result } %W mark set insert {insert lineend} %W insert {insert lineend} \n %W mark set r1 insert-1c %W insert insert $result %W mark set r2 insert %W tag add sel {r1+1line linestart} r2 } } proc overrideCommands {} { interp hide {} exit proc exit {{code 0}} { global icon winico taskbar delete $icon interp invokehidden {} exit $code } } # utility commands # calculate the difference between two date: [dd {d m y} {d m y}] # or the date x days from now : [dd {d m y} x] # if first date is the empty list {} today is used proc dd {d1 d2} { if {$d1=={}} { set d1 [clock format [clock scan {today}] -format {%d %m %Y}] } set second1 [clock scan $d1 -format {%d %m %Y}] if {[llength $d2]==1} { # difference in days set second2 [expr {$second1+$d2*24*60*60}] return [clock format $second2 -format {%d %m %Y}] } else { # difference between days set second2 [clock scan $d2 -format {%d %m %Y}] return [expr {int(($second2-$second1)/60./60./24.)}] } } # https://wiki.tcl-lang.org/cal proc cal {{month {}} {year {}}} { if {$month eq ""} {set month [clock format [clock sec] -format %B]} if {[llength $month] > 1} { set res {} foreach m $month { append res [cal $m $year]\n\n } return [string trimright $res] } if {$year eq ""} {set year [clock format [clock sec] -format %Y]} set res " $month $year\n Su Mo Tu We Th Fr Sa\n" set weekday [clock format [clock scan "1 $month $year"] -format %w] append res [string repeat " " $weekday] scan [clock format [clock scan "1 $month $year"] -format %m] %d decm set maxd [numberofdays $decm $year] for {set d 1} {$d <= $maxd} {incr d} { append res [format %3d $d] if {[incr weekday]>6} {append res \n; set weekday 0} } set res } proc numberofdays {month year} { if {$month==12} {set month 1; incr year} clock format [clock scan "[incr month]/1/$year 1 day ago"] \ -format %d } main
So, why not just use Microsoft's clipbrd.exe ? It seems to do what you described the scratchpad would do... be a repository for copy/cut and paste.
MJ - I didn't know clibrd.exe, thanks for the tip. However that seems to be read only and I also use it to write small snippets of code to paste into the chat for instance. Additionaly the abillity to evaluate some Tcl code makes it for instance quite a powerful calculator as well.