________________________________________________________________ ClipAid (VERSION 1.00) by Douglas Boling Copyright (c) 1997 Ziff Davis Publishing Company First Published February 4, 1997 ________________________________________________________________ About ClipAid... Purpose: ClipAid, which runs under Windows 95 and Windows NT 4.0, lets you copy internet URLs from any Windows document to an easily accessible list in the tray. You can also paste the URLs to your desktop as internet shortcuts. Usage: To install ClipAid, copy the program files into a directory on your hard disk and create an icon for CLIPAID.EXE in your shell. When you launch ClipAid, you'll see a small icon in the tray on the far end of the taskbar. As long as ClipAid is running, any URL that you copy into the clipboard will be saved in the ClipAid history list. ClipAid supports these internet schemes: http, ftp, file, gopher, mailto, news, and telnet. To view the URLs you've saved in ClipAid's history list, double click on the ClipAid icon on the taskbar. The ClipAid window, organized as a set of property sheets, will be displayed on your screen. The property sheet that is initially displayed is the history page. This page contains a list of the last 64 Internet addresses you have copied to the clipboard. ClipAid automatically removes duplicates so the list contains up to 64 unique addresses organizes in the order they were saved, the most recent one being at the top of the list. Two buttons on the history page let you manage the history list. The Delete button deletes the currently selected URL from the history list. The Clear History button clears the entire history list. To protect against accidents, ClipAid asks for confirmation before clearing the list. If you double click on an address in the list or click the copy button, ClipAid will copy the selected URL back into the system clipboard. Since ClipAid knows the copied data is a URL, it will not only place the URL text string into the clipboard, but also a set of other data types that are recognized by Explorer. This lets you paste an internet shortcut onto the Windows desktop or into a folder. When you double-click this shortcut, the system will automatically launch the internet access software you have associated with this URL data type. ClipAid's Configuration page contains a set of radio buttons that let you control whether ClipAid automatically inserts the URL data type into the clipboard when you copy a URL and, if so, how this is handled. If you choose automatic insertion, there are some special considerations. Unfortunately, inserting the URL data type overwrites other data types that OLE-enabled programs such as Word and Excel use to handle OLE objects. The first of the four buttons, "Always insert URL data type", tells ClipAid to always put the URL data type in the clipboard when a new URL is added to the list. This setting is handy if you are using non-OLE programs since the URL insertion always occurs automatically. It is also the only mode that retains formats in the clipboard that are not known to ClipAid when inserting the URL data type. Use this mode if you want automatic insertion when using programs that use special formats of text, such as a Netscape Navigator's bookmark data type. Since the inserted URL data type can cause problems with when using the OLE features of programs like Word and Excel, this mode is not a good option when using these programs. The second setting, "Insert URL data type and delete all but text and RTF types", configures ClipAid to automatically copy a URL data type to the clipboard but delete all data types other than text and, if available, RTF. Since basic formatting information is retained with the RTF data type, you can cut and paste within programs like Word or WordPad as long as you are working with text, not OLE objects. Deletion of the other data types prevents the word processor from attempting to use OLE when it cannot. However, special purpose data types that are unknown to ClipAid are also deleted. This option is the best choice when cutting URLs from word processors. The third setting, "Insert URL data type only when simple text is in clipboard", causes ClipAid to place a URL data type in the clipboard only when the clipboard contains the standard ASCII text data type and no other. This setting is safer than the two settings listed above, but can be inconvenient when you are using an OLE-enabled program such as Word. This option is useful if you are using a program like Notepad or most internet email programs, which only insert the text data type into the clipboard. The final setting, "Never place URL data type", disables automatic URL insertion under all conditions, though ClipAid will continue to add the URL text to its history list. You can manually insert the URL data type by double-clicking a URL, or selecting a URL and clicking the Copy button. Below the radio buttons, there are two check boxes. Check the first checkbox, "Allow single click activate from taskbar", and ClipAid will open with a single click on its taskbar icon instead of a double click. This isn't the way Microsoft's own tray icon utilities work, but many users like the quick response of single click activation. Checking the other checkbox, "Start ClipAid each time Windows is started", lets you automatically start ClipAid without placing it in your Startup group. ClipAid uses few resources and its performance impact is minimal, so you'll probably want to use this option. Since ClipAid saves the history list when you shut down the program and restores the list when you restart it, the list can contain URLs you've saved going back weeks or months. The Configuration page also contains a Remove button, which shuts down ClipAid and removes it from memory. This is different from the Close button, which minimizes ClipAid but does not remove it from memory. Note that ClipAid must be running and visible in the taskbar to monitor the clipboard and save URLs in the history list. There are some other useful actions available by right-clicking on the ClipAid icon in the tray. The first item on ClipAid's context menu is Properties; selecting it displays the ClipAid window. If there are any URL addresses in the history list, the context menu also displays the last four URLs copied into the clipboard. When you select one of these menu items, ClipAid copies the URL into the clipboard so you can paste it as a shortcut. This provides a quick method of inserting the URL data type into the clipboard even if ClipAid is not configured to do this automatically. Support Help for PC Magazine's free utilities can be obtained electronically in the Utilities section of ZD Net's TIPS Forum (GO ZNT:TIPS). The authors of current utilities generally visit this forum daily. You may find an answer to your question by reading the messages already posted in the forum. If the author is not available and the forum sysops can't answer your question, the Utilities column editor, who checks this forum each day, will contact the author for you. Douglas Boling is a contributing editor of PC Magazine. ________________________________________________________________