Index

Index:

Intro	Introduction to UltraClip

Display	The UltraClip display and buttonbar

Using...	Using UltraClip

External Files	External Files

Printing	Printing

OLE	OLE support

Commands	Menu Commands


Commands
Menu Commands:

File:

Open

Save

Run Clipboard

Configure

Print

Printer Setup

Edit:

Cut

Copy

Paste

Delete

Clear

Autopaste

Window:

Window

Desktop

Save

Restore


Introduction

UltraClip is a utility to extend the functionality of the Windows clipboard. It lets you

* store multiple objects placed on the clipboard and view thumbnails for quick retrieval

* print cheat sheets of the thumbnails

* save and retrieve the objects as .CLP files to and from the disk

* read .BMP, .PCX, .GIF and .WMF (Aldus) images off the disk for further use

* save and restore the UltraClip desktop and all its objects

Prerequisites

UltraClip requires Windows 3.1.

Constraints

UltraClip stores its clip objects in memory - you'll need sufficient memory to support whatever you wish to access. Large color bitmaps can comsume several megabytes, so beware. UltraClip ignores owner-display formats.  Not compatible with the original release of Norton Desktop for Windows 1.0.

Copyright

UltraClip is a copyrighted work by Doug Overmyer, 1992.

Registration

UltraClip is distributed as shareware. If you continue to use the program after 21 days you are expected to register your copy. The registration fee is $5.00,  or $7.50 to register and receive the latest version on disk, payable to

Doug Overmyer

1817 San Pedro Avenue

Berkeley, CA 94707

USA

Disclaimer

You use UltraClip entirely at your own risk. Only you can determine its suitability for your configuration and needs. No other warrenties are offered or implied.


Display
The UltraClip Display

UltraClip is a MDI application with a button and status bar along the top of the window area and separate child windows for each clip object.

From left to right the button icons represent:

Cut to Clipboard - copy currently active window to clipboard , then delete image window

Copy to Clipboard - copy currently active window to clipboard

Paste from Clipboard - create new image window from clipboard

Delete Window - remove image window from UC

Clear Clipboard - delete current contents of clipboard

Array - tile the image windows in a grid for easy viewing

These buttons duplicate options on the UltraClip menus.

To the right of the buttons is a status window showing ...

Status of Auto Paste function (P or _)

Information about currently active object (if any)

Size of DIB/BMP stored in memory

width*height*resolution of image

PICT memory size

Text object size

Native size if OLE data available

-or-

A short explanation of active icon if mouse button depressed

In the open area are windows which display thumbnails of the objects currently stored in UltraClip. You can drag these windows around in the display area, iconize them, tile them or use the other options on the Window menu. If you zoom one of the clip windows, the object is displayed full size. If you resize the main window, the clip windows are retiled automatically if autotile is configured.


Using UltraClip

Once UC is running, just use the paste icon or menu option to paste the current contents of the clipboard into UC. If there is a graphic on the clipboard, UC makes a copy, creates a window, and displays it. You can store as many objects as memory and resources allow.

To restore an object to the clipboard, highlight the window you wish to access, and either click the Copy button, choose Edit/Copy from the menus, or right-click the window's title bar. This will copy the object to the clipboard, replacing whatever was there before. You can also choose Edit/Cut (or the Cut Button) to copy the object to the clipboard and delete the UC copy.

To selectively copy one or more formats to the clipboard, right click anywhere in the clip window area. A dialog box with the available formats will appear. Click on the formats you're interested in, then OK to copy the selected formats to the clipboard. Use the Ctrl key to select files non-sequentially.

Remember, UltraClip retains a copy of all the fomats until you close the window, or exit the program. If you chose the wrong format the first time, just repeat the copy.

You can read various graphics files directly from the disk and automatically create a clip window. Currently Windows 3 .bmp, version 5 .pcx,.gif and Aldus metafiles .wmf are supported. See the File/Open menu item for details. You can also read and create .clp files that are compatible with the Windows Clipboard viewer application.

UltraClip has an AutoPaste mode that will automatically paste every new object placed on the clipboard (except those copied from UC). To activate AutoPaste choose the Edit/Start AutoPaste menu option or click the text box with the right mouse button. The status box displays P or _ depending on the current status of AutoPaste. You can configure UltraClip to start in AutoPaste mode using the File/Configure menu option. Choose the startup mode you desire and it will take effect the next time you start UltraClip.

Clicking the array button arranges the clip windows in a grid based on your setup configuration. The default sizes the thumbnails to 125 pixels square and fits as many clip windows as possible in the current program window. See the File/Configure for changing the default.

You can clear the current contents of the clipboard using the Edit/Clear menu or the Clear button. This may free up some memory if the clipboard is currently storing a large object.

Choose Desktop/Save to save all the current clip window objects. You can later reload them by choosing Desktop/Restore. This feature is very helpful for taking a snapshot of your working envirnoment and quickly restoring it. See also External Files.

When you depress an icon button, the status display box temporarily displays a brief explanation of the action.


External Files

.CLP Files

Ultraclip can save and read .CLP files that are compatible with the Clipboard Viewer application that comes with Windows. To save an UltraClip window as a .CLP file, highlight it by clicking on the title bar and choose File/Save from the file menu. Supply a suitable file name, and your clip window is saved to disk.  You can load one or more .clp files by choosing File/Open , selecting the CLP file type, and selecting the file or files you wish to load. Each clip object will be loaded into its own window with a thumbnail . You can copy it to the clipboard, hold for later retrival, or print a thumbnail sheet.

.BMP, .PCX, and .GIF Files

UltraClip can read Win 3.x style bitmap files, .PCX version 5 files, GIF single image as well as Aldus-style metafiles (the kind produced by Corel, Arts & Letters, and other draw programs). Choose File/Open, select the file type you are interested in, and highlight the filenames you wish to load. In this situation, UltraClip does a bit more than just load the format into a clip window. For .BMP files, both a memory DIB image and a bitmap & palette object are created. You can copy one or all to the clipboard as needed. PCX and .GIF files are translated into a compatible DIB image, and a corresponding bitmap and palette are constructed. Thus you can use UC to create bitmap objects from DIB,PCX and GIF images if needed.

.WMF Files

 For metafiles, UC creates a Picture object as well as a DIB image and bitmap/palette pair. Only Aldus style placeable metafiles are supported.

Desktop Files

The menu options Desktop/Save and Restore let you save the contents of all existing clip windows to disk and restore them later. You can specify the drive and save file name using the File/Configure option. Please note that the desktop save file can be very large if you have a number of large objects in memory - it consumes roughly as much disk space as the in-memory images. For example, if UltraClip has reduced your free global memory from 8MB to 5MB, you can expect the desktop save file to use roughly 3 MB of disk space.


Printing

Printing Thumbnails

UltraClip includes a simple print option that lets you print 'cheat sheets' of the current clip windows. In the File/Configure dialog you can specify the grid used to position the printed thumbnails:

m Across by

n Down with

 x Inches of margin.

During printing, new thumbnails are created to optimally fill the available space with a caption built from the filename or module name. Be patient when starting a print - creating a page with 24 or 30 thumbnails is quite system intensive considering the scaling and (in most cases) color conversions. Don't try a print without sufficient resources - the print manager can consume considerable disk and memory resources. The quality of the output depends somewhat on the printer driver, as does the speed of the operation.


UltraClip & OLE

UltraClip is OLE aware. It neither embeds nor links to objects but it lets you store OLE data for embedding and linking in other applications. When you copy an OLE object into UC, it  captures the OLE data; when you restore an object to the clipboard, it places copies of the original data back on the clipboard in the same order and format. The goal is to transparently restore the state of the clipboard.  Of course, if you selectively choose formats to copy to the clipboard, the copy process will not match the original.

If you use the Desktop Save and Restore options, the restored clip windows should contain all the original OLE data and formats.


File/Open

This option allows you to select various files for use in UltraClip. You can select

.BMP	Win 3.x graphic files (DIBs)

.PCX	Version 5 PCX files

.GIF	Single image files

.WMF	Aldus placeable metafiles

.CLP	CLP files compatible with the Windows clipboard viewer

You can select one or more files from the file open dialog, and UltraClip will create clip windows for each. See also External Files.


File/Save

This option lets you save the active clip window to a .CLP file of your choice. Select a directory and filename, and UltraClip writes out the file.


File/Run Clipboard
File/Run Clipboard Viewer

Launch the Windows clipboard viewer application. For this to work, clipbrd.exe must be in the Windows directory or in the DOS path.


File/Configure

You can configure UltraClip by choosing  Configure from the file menu, or right-clicking on the title bar with the mouse. You fill in the following dialog box:

Your choices are written to uc.ini and takes effect with the next object pasted into UltraClip. Please note that existing clip windows are not recalculated, so it is best to change that parameter at the beginning or end of a session.

AutoPaste Mode

Set the startup autopaste mode.

Thumbnail Size:

The thumbnail images will be sized to fit within the square you specify (in pixels). Note that the clip windows will often be rather larger, as they are resized by the various Window options to fill the available desktop area in several different ways.

Printing Grid & Left Margin

Determines the layout of the thumbnails on the printed page and the left margin (if any).

AutoTile Option:

Autotile controls the automatic resizing of the clip windows whenever the UltraClip main window is resized.

Visibility

If you choose Topmost, UltraClip will stay visible even when covered by other windows. This can be useful in certain situations where you need to copy repeatedly from UltraClip.


File/Print

UltraClip includes a simple print option that lets you print 'cheat sheets' of the current clip windows. In the options dialog you can specify the grid used to position the printed thumbnails:

m Across by

n Down with a margin of

x Inches.

During printing, new thumbnails are created to optimally fill the available space with a caption built from the filename or module name.

Be patient when starting a print - creating a page with 24 or 30 thumbnails is quite system intensive considering the scaling and (in most cases) color conversions. Don't try a print without sufficient memory - the print manager can consure considerable disk and memory resources. The quality of the output depends somewhat on the printer driver, as does the speed of the operation.


File/Print
File/Printer Setup

Brings up the configuration dialog for the current system printer. If you wish to change to a different printer , use the control panel application and restart UltraClip.


Edit/Copy

Copy all the formats associated with the active clip window to the clipboard. Of course, this replaces whatever was on the clipboard before. If this command seems 'not to work', check to see that you have made one of the clip windows active.

shortcut:

Right-click the title bar of the window you wish to copy.

selective copy:

If you wish to copy only some of the formats, click with the secondary mouse button inside the clip window and a listbox with the available formats will pop up. Choose one or more formats, click OK, and the formats will be selectively placed on the clipboard.


Edit/Cut

Copy the formats of the active clip window to the clipboard, then delete the window.


Edit/Paste

Create a new clip window by pasting the contents of the clipboard. If possible a thumbnail will be displayed in the new window.

If the source application has used only private formats, UltraClip will still create a clip window but is unable to intrepret the data. In this case, it will display the name of the source module and the names of the private formats. Often these are longer than can fit in the thumbnail space. In this case, right click in the thumbnail area to see a listbox with all available formats. See also:Edit/Copy.


Edit/Delete

Delete the active clip window and all associated formats.


Edit/Clear

Empty the clipboard of its contents. Has no effect on the UltraClip windows.


Edit/AutoPaste

Toggles between Autopaste and non-autopaste modes.

In Autopaste mode, UltraClip pastes the contents of the clipboard into a new clip window whenever the contents of the clipboard change. UltraClip tries very hard to avoid pasting too soon - that is, before the source application is finished placing formats on the clipboard. Unfortunately, there is some diversity in the way different applications handle 'copying' to the clipboard, so an occasional duplicate paste may occur under Autopaste mode. Just delete the first one, which usually contains only some of the formats.

The autopaste mode is reflected in the status window:

P  - autopaste active

_ - no autopaste

You can set the default autopaste mode at startup by running the File/Configure dialog.


Window
Window Commands

Most of the Window commands are standard MDI fare. The unusual ones are listed below:

Array:

Optimally arranges the clip windows in a grid to fill the UltraClip window area. The target size of the thumbnail is specified in the File/Configure dialog box. If AutoTile is selected from the configuration dialog, UltraClip will automatically re-array the clip windows whenever the main window is resized.

You can also array the clip windows by clicking the Array button on the buttonbar.

CloseAll

Close all clip windows and delete the formats associated with them.

Iconize All

Iconize all clip windows.

Restore All

Restore to normal size all iconized clip windows.


Desktop/Save

Saves all the clip windows and their formats to a file.

You can specify the name of the save file using the File/Configure dialog.

UltraClip will check that enough free disk space exists for the save file - if not it pops up a warning dialog box and aborts the save operation. The save file is uncompressed, and can consume several megabytes of disk space if storing large objects.


Desktop/Restore

Using the current desktop save file, it recreates the clip windows and formats of the save file. See File/Configure for info about specifying and changing the save file.