ArsClip runs on the system tray and monitors for new clipboard items (by default, only text items). You press a configured hotkey (CTRL+SHIFT+Z by default) to show the Popup in the current text window your working in. Click on an item to paste it into the current window or click Cancel to dismiss the popup. ArsClip pastes by using one of three methods: place on clipboard and pressing CTRL+V, place on Clipboard and press SHIFT+INSERT, or by mimicing typing. Mimicing typing is not recommended and should only be used for programs that don't support the other two pasting methods.

You don't have to use a hotkey to display the popup. You can configure ArsClip to display the popup when you double click the system tray icon (Under Configure -> Popup). You also have the option of using the Tooltip Popup instead of the normal popup. The Tooltip Popup is a minimalistic, single item Tooltip (like the ones you see when you hover over an item for a description).

That's about it, but don't be fooled. ArsClip has a lot of options and is highly configurable.




Clicks
Clicking on an item pastes that item. Update: Now, Right-Clicking an item on the popup shows a popup menu that replaces the need for any keystroke and mouse-click combinations listed in the next paragraph.

SHIFT+Clicking an item shows a preview of a picture or a text item. CTRL+Clicking and item has 2 possible configurations. It can run/open an item (like open a file, run a program, open website url, or open an email address) or it can display a popup option menu with many options of what to do with that selected item. CTRL+Clicking is configured under Configure->Popup. There are also three optional function keystrokes (F1 thru F12) to combine with a click to only copy an item, make an item a permanent item, or paste it by mimicing typing. These older option can all be carried out by using the CTRL+Click menu (default configuration), and it is recommended instead of the function keys.

Hover
You can hover over an item to see a larger preview of the item in a tooltip. The popup will only show the first few characters of an item (as configured in Configure->Popup), so this allows you to quickly see more of it. You can also use the SHIFT+Click method to bring up a preview window (as mention above).

Full/Configured Mode
There are many optional items that can be shown on the popup window (by using [Configure -> Popup -> Show Order]). By default, ArsClip shows all items, but even when configured to show less options - you can click the "Full Mode" menu item to temporarily show all items on the popup.

Tooltip Popup
The Tooltip Popup is single item popup. The currently displayed item is changed using the Next and Previous hotkeys set under (Config->Hotkey). The "Full Header" (as configured under Config->Tooltip) show the item number, and instructions on how to paste an item or close the Tooltip Popup. You can turn off the full header once you've learned how to operate the Tooltip Popup for a smaller window.

Most users prefer the normal popup over the tooltip popup and the normal popup is recommended for all new users.



A text item follows this path: Clipboard -> ArsClip's Popup -> Removed Items -> Deleted

When a new item enters the clipboard, ArsClip makes a copy that is visible in the popup. If the popup reaches the cofigured amount of maximum items to display, the oldest text item is move to the Removed Items list. These items aren't displayed on the popup, but you can still access them by right clicking the system tray icon. Once the Removed Items list fills up, the oldest item is deleted and it's gone. These maximums can be configured in (Configure -> Clipboard -> Text Items). You can set the Removed Items queue to a large number, since it only used hard drive space for these items, without slowing down ArsClip.

A non-text item follows this path (if configured to monitor non-text items): Clipboard -> ArsClips's popup -> Removed Items -> Deleted

Non-text items have their own separate queue for items. Once they fall of the list, they're moved to Removed Items. To conserve memory, you have the option to ignore items that are large in size. This is useful if you do graphics editing, since these graphics can be quite large. These items can be configured in (Configure -> Clipboard -> Non-text items).




UPDATE: Vista users can and should disable chain break detection, since breaks are no longer present on the Vista operating system.

Unfortunately, any program can mess up the "clipboard chain", because it is left up to the program to correctly handle clipboard messages. ArsClip has a workaround for this. It checks the contents of the clipboard every 1 minute to make sure that it was automatically notified of the current items arrival. If it wasn't, it will display an error message, and then transparently fix any future problems this session without bugging you. This can help you track down programs that break any clipboard monitors. For example, if you run a program and copy an item to the clipboard and up to a minute later you get this ArsClip error message, you can be pretty sure that program can break the windows clipboard chain. Please let me know of any programs you use that break the chain.

ArsClip nows monitors for programs that may have crashed or left the clipboard chain without properly notifying windows. This helps detect chain breaks much earlier and increases the accuracy of detecting problem programs.

There is an option (under Config -> Clipboard) to disable the Notification window all together, but it is only recommended for advanced users.



About

ArsClip lets you keep a list of items, that you frequently paste, always on the popup, called Permanent Items. It also supports multiple groups of items that you can switch the permanent items visible on the popup at any time. For example, you can have one group that you use for a specific program, another group could be logons or web links. Remember, you can make items that are currently in your popup Permanent Items by CTRL+Clicking that item and selected the Permanent Item option for the menu.

Keystrokes and Commands

Permanent Items now support keystrokes and commands. Keystrokes are simulated to aid in automation. For example, if you enter a user name, press tab, enter your password, and then press enter; these actions can be automated by ArsClip. Just click the "Use Keystrokes" checkbox and click on the key buttons to insert the Key Variables.

Commands let you insert pauses, insert dates, run programs, and more. These make permanent items flexible and robust.

AutoSwitch

ArsClip automatically saves the last Permanent Item group you last used with each program name. To change a group associated with a program, just switch to the group using the Popup (Use "Full Mode" if permanent items groups are not visible on the popup). The current list can be seen at "Permanent Items->AutoSwitch".

Complex Items

Any type of clipboard item can be made a Permanent Item by clicking the "Get Clipboard As..." button on the Permanent Items window or by CTRL+Clicking and item on the Popup and selecting the "Make Permanent As..." option. Unlike simple text items, they cannot be edited.



ArsClip supports pasting multiple items into a program by Form Mode (popup -> Misc -> Form Mode). When in Form Mode, you click an item on the popup, ArsClip pastes the item, simulates a TAB keypress, and then displays the popup again. This process repeats until you press Cancel. The TAB keypress will move focus to the next form field in a web page, or in a program. Sometimes a non-text item will receive focus in a web page, so you can press the "Next Field" option on the popup to skip to the next text field.

The Keystrokes option in Permanent Items is a more flexible way of pasting items and simulating keystrokes for items you paste often.



Sometimes, a program (like CMD.EXE) doesn't have a text field for Arsclip to automatically paste into. ArsClip will detect this and ask you if you wish to always "Copy to clipboard only" for this program. If you say yes, this programs name will be stored in a file (nopaste.txt) and ArsClip won't ask you again what to do with this program. You're not likely to run into many of these programs, and this is mainly meant for older programs that run in a command prompt, but the command prompt has a paste option (like CMD.EXE).





ArsClip uses several text files, folders, and data files to store your settings and to cache session data. This section provides a description of each file and their purpose. First off, all data files are stored in the same location as the ArsClip.exe executable and are generated automatically. To move ArsClip to another location, you only need to copy the folder and all subfolders that ArsClip is stored in. This is why it is highly recommended that ArsClip is in a folder by itself.

The -data command line option will cause ArsClip to store this data in the current user's profile instead of the default location. This means you can use 1 ArsClip executable, but have separate data for every user.

All of the folders/files listed below are relative to the location of ArsClip.exe

[arsclip.ini]
Text file containing all configuration options, including default options. When you change a setting in ArsClip, it is stored here.

[exepigs.ini]
Text file containing the AutoSwitch Permanent Item Groups settings. See Permanent Items -> AutoSwitch for more details.

[nopaste.txt]
(This file is no longer used since v2.6.7) Text file containing the names of programs that ArsClip cannot paste directly into (like cmd.exe and command.com). The program name is place in the file when you answer yes to a dialog in the program whenever the a paste error occurs.

[exepaste.ini]
This file replaces and enhances the nopaste.txt file. It is used for per-program pasting method assignment. That is, it will let you override the current configured paste method for a given program name (like CMD.EXE). Most commonly, it is used to specify a program that always requires "Mimic Typing" like the command prompt CMD.EXE or a telnet program.

[other.txt]
Text file containing the description of "Non-text" items as shown on the popup when non-text monitoring is enabled.

[remember.txt]
Text file containing the plain text version of all text items. Each item is a number on a single line followed by that many lines of text. The file is made of one of more of those items

[textcache\]
Folder containing .ACZ binary files. These files contain the complex version of text items. The name of the file is a hexadecimal number related to each [remember.txt] text file entry.

[removedcache\]
Folder containing .ACZ binary files (complexe items) and .AC text files that contain the plain text version of an item, or the description of the item as shown on the popup. This folder contains the [iconcahce\] subfolder that contains the bitmaps of the icon associated with each clipboard item.

[othercache\]
Folder containing .ACZ binary file (complexe items) that relate directy to the descriptions in [other.txt].

[iconcache\]
Folder containing the icons in bitmap format associated with both text and non-text items.

["Permanent Group Name"\]
Folder, with the same name that you choose for a Permanent Group ("Default" is the name of the folder created by default). Each contains [perm0.ini] and [perm1.ini] files. [Perm0.ini] contains the name of each permanent item as shown on the popup. [Perm1.ini] contains the simple text item to paste of each permanent item. Also, this folder can conatain .ACZ binary complex items if you have pictures, rich text, unicode, or other permanent items that are not simple plain text.