Add support for HTML and RichText (RTF) clipboard sections

[JamesMGreene]

Tasks:

• Add a setHtml method to the ZeroClipboard JS client instances
• Add a setRichText method to the ZeroClipboard JS client instances
• Add support for setHtml on the Flash side
• Add support for setRichText on the Flash side
• Disable support for HTML/RichText by default when running on Linux
• Add an option for consumers to override and re-enable HTML/RichText support on Linux despite its known limitations

Optional Tasks:

• Provide an htmlToRtf method in a demo or docs (not in the ZeroClipboard library itself)

Related:

• Design discussion: API redesign for clipboard richness #22
• Linux problems: Clipboard bugs on linux #78

[pkbarbiedoll]

James, can you clarify what the "known limitations" are for HTML/RichText support? In an earlier build of ZC, copy/pasting HTML/RichText is not a problem on my linux systems. If I am not experiencing issues with 1.0.7, should I expect the proposed build to work?

[JamesMGreene]

@pkbarbiedoll:
Clarifications regarding ZeroClipboard <= 1.0.7:

1. The older version of ZeroClipboard's Flash 10 implementation ("ZeroClipboard10.swf") never supported RichText, only plain text and HTML.
2. When you copied HTML, the plain text clipboard was forced to receive HTML markup rather than a plain text equivalent.

As I understand it from Issue #78, Linux poses a unique problem in that it has several different clipboard buffers. The Flash 9 implementation (plain text only) puts the data into 1+ clipboard buffers (PRIMARY, SECONDARY, and CLIPBOARD) that seem to work across all Linux applications but the Flash 10 implementation (plain text, rich texts, HTML) puts the data into either just the SECONDARY or CLIPBOARD buffer (but not the PRIMARY buffer). This seems to result in the data being available to other graphical applications (i.e. that are managed by the desktop environment, e.g. X, GNOME, etc.) but not in textual system applications (e.g. Terminal). Given that the Terminal is a very important target (particularly for GitHub's ZeroClipboard use case), this was majorly unacceptable.

You can read more details on Issue #78, the Adobe bug I filed, and Wikipedia.

If you truly didn't have any issues pasting into the Terminal, then please please please let me know so we can look into your Linux system's configuration (e.g. did you have autocutsel running?).

[pkbarbiedoll]

@JamesMGreene - I am still running the old version of ZC (1.0.7) and can confirm that I am not able to paste copied HTML data into Terminal. This is not a problem as my users paste into a rich text entry form.

[JamesMGreene]

@pkbarbiedoll: Thank you very much for confirming!

[JamesMGreene]

@pkbarbiedoll: Though, just to clarify, nothing gets pasted into the Terminal, right? Not even the "plain text" (raw markup)?

[pkbarbiedoll]

@JamesMGreene: That is correct. Nothing is pasted in Terminal. Same rich content pastes as expected (retains markup) in a RTE.

[JamesMGreene]

Thanks much, @pkbarbiedoll. :)

[jaindeepti]

Hi Everybody,
Can anybody provide me the ZeroClipboard latest files to be included wile implementation and all the help documents which has the steps for "How to use the utility to copy the HTML and paste the same format of html in a word document?". I am not able to use the utility. I am using the following piece of code:

 ZeroClipboard.setMoviePath('ZeroClipboard11.swf')
        //create client
        var clip = new ZeroClipboard.Client();

        clip.addEventListener('mousedown', function () {
             clip.setHTML($('#box-content').html());
//            clip.setData({
//                "text": "Hello",
//                "html": "<b>Hello</b>",
//                "richText": "{\\rtf1\\ansi\n{\\b Hello}}",
//                "MyAwesomeCustomFormat": "0xDEADBEEF"
//            });

//                      clip.setText($('#box-content').html());


        });

        clip.addEventListener('complete', function (client, htmlText) {
            alert('copied: ' + htmlText);
        });
        clip.glue('copy');

Thanks in advance!!

[JamesMGreene]

@jaindeepti The EnhancedClipboard isn't implemented yet, thus why this issue is still open. It will be available in the v2.0.0 release when it's ready.

The code sample you provided appears to be using a very old version of ZeroClipboard. Please consider upgrading to the latest version.

[jaindeepti]

Thanks James!! I am trying to implement the newer version of code too but it is not working. Kindly help me in this. Following is the code snippet which I am using:
Files included:

<script src="Scripts/jquery-1.4.1.min.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

<script src="ZeroClipboard.js" type="text/javascript"></script>

HTML:

<button id="copy-button" data-clipboard-text="Copy Me!" title="Click to copy me.">Copy to Clipboard</button>

Code:

        var clip = new ZeroClipboard(document.getElementById("copy-button"), {
            moviePath: "ZeroClipboard11.swf"
        });
clip.on("load", function (client) {
            // alert( "movie is loaded" );

            clip.on("complete", function (clip, args) {
                // `this` is the element that was clicked
                this.style.display = "none";
                alert("Copied text to clipboard: " + args.text);
            });
        });

When I click on the copy button, nothing happens.Please let me know if anything is wrong. This I have implemented from the following URL:
https://github.com/zeroclipboard/zeroclipboard/blob/master/docs/instructions.md

Thanks in advance!!

[JamesMGreene]

@jaindeepti: Please open a new issue instead of hijacking this high profile issue. Thanks!

[JamesMGreene]

Some API discussion: https://github.com/JamesMGreene/zeroclipboard/commit/dab1af67f6c2682f4afd6a2c32daa6ec0c9c1e56#commitcomment-4673264