Using the Clipboard

Read and write the system clipboard with two functions from bootstack.clipboard. The clipboard is global to the application, so these are plain functions rather than widget methods — call them from within a running app:

import bootstack as bs
from bootstack.clipboard import set_clipboard, get_clipboard

with bs.App(title="Clipboard") as app:
    bs.Button("Copy", on_click=lambda: set_clipboard("sk-live-7f3a9c2b"))
    bs.Button("Paste", on_click=lambda: print(get_clipboard()))
app.run()

Copy a field’s value

A common pattern is a read-only field with a copy button beside it — for an API key, a token, or a generated value. The Customizing Fields how-to builds exactly this with an addon button:

from bootstack.clipboard import set_clipboard

key = bs.TextField(value="sk-live-7f3a9c2b", label="API key",
                   read_only=True, horizontal="stretch")
key.insert_addon("button", "after", name="copy", icon="clipboard",
                 on_click=lambda: set_clipboard(key.value),
                 active_when_readonly=True)

Reading the clipboard

get_clipboard() returns the current text, or an empty string when the clipboard is empty, holds non-text data, or no app is running:

text = get_clipboard()
if text:
    use(text)

Platform note

On Linux/X11 the clipboard is owned by the running process, so its contents are cleared when the app exits unless a system clipboard manager is running. On Windows and macOS the operating system owns the clipboard, so contents persist after the app closes.

API reference

See Clipboard.

get_clipboard	Return the current text contents of the system clipboard.
set_clipboard	Replace the system clipboard contents with text.