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
}
}
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.