Charles Moore Reviews PTHPasteboard Pro 4.1.2 - Multiple Clipboards And More
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Several third party developers have addressed this problem, and PTH Pasteboard and PasteBoard Pro from PTH Consulting, a small software company based out of Flower Mound, Texas is the best yet that I've tried.
PTHPasteboard 4 is a multiple pasteboard program for OS X that lets you store and manage an unlimited number of Clipboard entries, watching you while you work and keeps a copy of any items that you have copied to your pasteboard. While there are other utilities that support multiple Clipboards (the first implementation of this I can recall using was in the classic Nisus Writer word processor back in the '90s, which supported up to ten clipboards). The problem has been that the means of managing and retrieving the stored Clipboard contents has tended to be clunky and a hassle to use, so you didn't bother half the time. PTHPasteboard does this extremely slickly, so you will be inclined to actually use it.
PTHPasteboard's intelligently designed user interface is key. The program is a Preference Pane, and can be configured to suit your needs, tastes and work habits.
You can set the number of entries it stores (default is 100) and the maximum item size, and can also make the program remember stored items after a restart and/or ignore specified items.
The most-recent ten entries are available via keystrokes; while the others can be accessed via the PTHPasteboard buffer (through a keystroke, the menu bar, or the Services menu in Services-savvy applications). The Hot Key tab allows you to create, delete and manage global Hot Keys that trigger Actions within PTHPasteboard. Hot Keys work within any Mac OS X application and allow you to have one key access to most of PTHPasteboard's features.
The Pasteboard window has a toolbar and a list of Pasteboard Items. The toolbar has a search field and other icons that control simple functionality within that window. Type in a string into the Search Field and the Pasteboard Window will automatically hide any items that don't match that string. You can use this to quickly find an older Item in a large Pasteboard. Each Pasteboard Item is numbered starting at 0, this number shows up on the left side of each Pasteboard Item and can be used to reference the particular item when using a Hot Key or using keyboard interactions with this Window.
The toolbar in the main Pasteboard window has an Eraser button which clears the entire history of the main Pasteboard window, with the exception of Item 0.
The Toolbar in the Custom Pasteboard window has a Pencil button that toggles the Custom Pasteboard window between Paste mode to Edit mode. When in Edit mode you can add/delete/edit any items for that Custom Pasteboard. Switching back to Paste mode allows you to paste those items into other Mac OS X applications.
Besides its main multiple clipboards functionality, PTHPasteboard supports creation of multiple customized pasteboards in which you can store frequently-used text or graphics for quick entry without repetitive typing. You can have as many Custom Pasteboards as you want and you can use the Pro version's Syncing feature to keep them updated on multiple machines.
Quick and easy access to stored items is via either a floating window or a menubar menu or both if you wish. Just go to either list, select the desired item, click it and it will be pasted into your currently active application window or text field. Couldn't be simpler.
You can also drag and drop any of the items from the Pasteboard Window, or use the keyboard to paste items within the window. To do this you must first select the Pasteboard Window.
To select the Pasteboard Window you can either click on the Menu Bar Icon for that Pasteboard Window, click on the Title Bar of the Pasteboard Window or use a Hot Key to Show the Pasteboard Window. Once the window is selected you can hit the 0-9 keys to paste the appropriate Pasteboard Item. You can also use the Up/Down Arrow keys as well as the Page Up/Down keys to select an item to paste, hit the Return or the Space key to paste the Item.
You can specify the menu display size and icon, and the floating window is resizable and movable. Selections are displayed with alternating color backgrounds to make distinguishing them easier at a glance.
I would like it if the floating window responded to windowshading with WindowShade X, but PTH has an even better and slicker solution, the "Autoshow Window" configuration, which changes the floater into a pop-up window which can be positioned at the bottom, left, or right periphery of your display. Just mouse over and it pops up, then collapses to its title bar when you mouse away. Cool.
Hover the mouse cursor for a second or two over a selection, and a preview of the entry appears in a subwindow.
PTHPasteboard comes in standard and Pro versions; the former freeware and the latter $19.95 shareware. For may users, the freeware version should be completely adequate, but if you need more, PTHPasteboard PRO adds the ability to Sync Pasteboards across multiple machines and the ability to paste through Filters for easy and powerful text manipulations. Filters perform automated transformation on items in your pasteboard buffer. For example if you had text in your pasteboard buffer and wanted to paste it as uppercase you would use the UPPERCASE filter.
PTHPasteboard PRO provides filters for many common text transformations. You can use it to quote text, search and replace (including regular expressions), change line endings and much more. In total there are over 30 different filters that you can use within PTHPasteboard PRO.
You can further enhance the built in filters within PTHPasteboard PRO by sequentially ordering filtering operations. This lets you perform complex manipulations on text very quickly.
If you work on multiple machines PTHPasteboard PRO's Syncing support is for you. PTHPasteboard PRO's Syncing support takes advantage of Mac OS X's Bonjour technology to seamlessly sync your pasteboard items across multiple machines. This means you can copy an image on your Macbook and paste it on your iMac. PTHPasteboard PRO also gives you the ability to encrypt data transmission using United States government approved AES 128 bit encryption.
If you've been using an earlier version of PTHPasteboard, version 4 adds a number of new features:
Settings are now controlled via a Preference Pane in System Preferences
Search field now available on all the Pasteboard windows
Access information on Pasteboard items by right/control clicking on any item
Paste formated text as unformatted by middle/command clicking on any item
Vastly improved HotKeys support
Fully integrated Mac OS X Help
Dozens of menubar icons
Ability to choose menubar icons for Custom Pasteboard windows
New in version 4.1.2:
Enhanced: Added new "Show when app activated" option (this brings back the pre 4.1.1 behavior of pasteboard windows)
Enhanced: Tweaked HotKeys to allow the same key to bring up more then one window
New in version Version 4.1.1:
Enhanced: Changed the way Pasteboard windows are activated so that only one window is activated at a time
Enhanced: Added new options to "Show Menu" mode in the "Advanced..." window
Enhanced: Alt clicking on Menubar Icon now clears history when in "Show Menu" mode
Fixed: Problem with changing custom ports in sync window
Fixed: Ability to disable Main window Menubar Icon
Fixed: Tidy filter problem with certain UTF-8 characters
Fixed: Tooltips will now properly close when closing the Pasteboard windows
Fixed: Adding certain Carbon apps to Ignore list now works
New in version 4.1.0:
Added new Tidy HTML Filter
Added new Shell Script Filter
Added various new Advanced Appearance options
Added nicer looking Tooltip Preview
Added ability to ignore items from certain applications (i.e. Keychain)
Added new "Add to Custom Pasteboard" menu item
Added new "Show Pasteboard Menu" option to Menubar Images
Added ability to remove the Item Number from the Pasteboard Windows
New in version 4.0.5:
Fixed a few issues with localization
New in version 4.0.4:
Added French Localization
Improved look and feel of Custom Filter Window
Added new option to Search and Replace RegEx filter
Fixed problem with pasting sequential filters using a Hot Key
Check out the new Screencasts section of the website, for info on using Filters
Quote Text filter now can quote with tabs and returns
Fixed problem with Quote Filter not working with blank quotes
PTHPasteboard 4 only works on Mac OS X 10.4 or later
PTHPasteboard 4 is and has always been free
PTHPasteboard PRO 4 is available for $19.95
For more information, visit:
http://pth.com/products/pthpasteboard/
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Charles W. Moore
