[Feature Request] Display a list of clipboard history

[dyckia]

After the user enters the activation command c:, it would be nice to display a list of the clipboard history instead of just showing a blank list.

This aligns with the current behavior of Windows' default clipboard manager and makes the selection more intuitive.

[CoreyHayward]

Hi @dyckia,

Thanks for the feature request, however this is the current behaviour as you can see in the screenshot below. I have only typed "c:" and it immediately shows up to 5 most recent results.

Whilst this isn't the full clipboard history (definitely something I could change if people thought it was more valuable to be able to scroll through the list), I'd be interested to figure out why its not showing the same for you. I'm guessing searching your clipboard history functions correctly?

[dyckia]

Hi @CoreyHayward,

Thanks for pointing it out. I took another look at your screenshot as well as the gif in the readme, and I did find that the recent history is displayed.

However, on my computer, when I type c:, none of the history is displayed. The history is only shown when I type some text.

I've attached some screenshots for your reference. Is there something wrong?

[CoreyHayward]

@dyckia I was able to get similar behaviour by having another PowerToys plugin use the same (c:) activation command. In your case it appears that the "Windows Settings" plugin may be interfering and showing overtop of it when you use the activation command.

Could you just check and confirm that no other plugins use the "c:" activation command or you can change it in settings to something unique if you would rather it be different?

[dyckia]

Hi @CoreyHayward,

I went over my settings, and I couldn't find any other plugins that are using the c: activision command.

Besides, even if I disable the "Windows Settings" plugin, the history still doesn't show up.

[CoreyHayward]

@dyckia Could you confirm which version of Clipboard Manager you are using? Could you also check to see if there is anything in the logs: \%LocalAppData%\Microsoft\PowerToys\PowerToys Run\Logs\ after typing the activation command. It could be erroring for some reason and exceptions should show in the logs

[dyckia]

@CoreyHayward My PowerToys' version is v0.78.0, and the Clipboard Manager's version is v0.2.0.

Yes, there is indeed an exception in the log:

[CoreyHayward]

@dyckia Looks like the exception is being thrown from the Windows URI Handler plug-in. If that is occurring/running before Clipboard Manager it could be preventing it from loading and displaying properly.

There are a few things you can try:

1. Disable the Windows URI Handler plugin and see if Clipboard Manager works correctly.
2. If disabling it completely works, you could then try disabling it in the global results (if enabled) however this means you will have to use the activation command for URI Handler.
3. Change the activation command of Clipboard Manager to something that is not detected by Windows URI handler.

I am not familiar with the specific implementation of the Windows URI plugin so these are just some ideas but please do let me know if any of these fixes your issue!

[dyckia]

@CoreyHayward I disabled all the plugins except the Clipboard Manager. This time there is no Uri exceptions, but the history list is still empty.

Here are my findings: When typing the action command (i), there was no call made to the PluginManager.cs.

The call was only made once I started typing something to search.

I am not sure whether this is the expected behavior?

[CoreyHayward]

@dyckia That is expected and I am seeing a similar occurrence in the logs. Could you confirm if you experience the same behaviour with other plugins?

e.g does typing '@' (Open PowerToys utilities and settings) show any results for you as shown below:

[dyckia]

@CoreyHayward Yes, it does show suggestions for other plugins:

[CoreyHayward]

@dyckia Really sorry, but I am a bit stumped by this one. Only further thing I can suggest is to completely remove and re-install both Power Toys and Clipboard Manager. I have upgraded Power Toys to v0.79.0 and it still is functioning as expected for me and without being able to re-create this reliably I'm struggling to find the issue.