Cut and Paste Delux (ClipGuru)

Member Name: grahamt

Product:	ClipGuru
Date:	21/04/09 (75 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: It's free ; It's relatively easy to use

Disadvantages: It isn't truely portable yet

Since I've been acting as a Dooyoo Guide for the Computer category I have been astounded by the number of, mostly new, members who think that, despite having agreed to Dooyoo's Ts&Cs, they can post reviews that have been blatantly and not so blatantly stolen from somewhere else on the Net. I find myself spending far too much time tracking down proof of these anti-social activities.

When I have the proof I always post a comment and send a message to the member in question letting them know that they have been caught out. The message is pretty much the same every time and so, rather than write it from scratch I wanted some quick and easy way of pasting the template of the message.

The trouble is that, with the normal Clipboard built into Windows, each thing you copy replaces what was last copied and then it is gone for good. However, quite often you want to build up a little collection of copied clips with which to construct a "personalised" message. With Windows Clipboard this is not possible.

This all lead me in a search for a "Better Clipboard". There are quite a few out there and I have tried many of them. I thought that I had found the perfect one in ClipGuru and I originally installed it more than a year ago. To start with it seemed to do everything I needed. Once activated, every time you clicked on a selection to Cut or Copy, ClipGuru stepped in and, with a very satisfying "click", stored it away in its database.

Opening ClipGuru from its System Tray icon displayed all of the items it had reserved for you, awaiting the time when you would need to paste one or many of its collection back into your latest composition. Of course, the collection can build up over time and so you can also manage them and trash those items you no longer need.

Then I stopped using ClipGuru and deinstalled it. The reason was that for some reason ClipGuru took exception to my preferred browser, Firefox. I noticed it initially here on Dooyoo. Like many members, I write my reviews in a word processor, OpenOffice Writer in my case, then cut and paste the review into Dooyoo. For some reason, although ClipGuru would happily copy the review into its database, it simply refused to paste it into the text box on Dooyoo.

I did communicate this problem to the ClipGuru developers and got a response, which is always a good sign. At first they were mystified but my evidence convinced them that all was not well and they agreed to look into it with the aim of producing a fix. A version that they claimed resolved this problem was subsequently produced and I installed it.

I was happy to find that they had indeed resolved the problem. It's always good to find a developer who is keen to improve his software; so unlike some mega software corporations whose attitudes towards their customers' complaints leaves a LOT to be desired (You will know about whom I'm talking if you are a regular readers of my reviews).

ClipGuru is more than just a repository of multiple text clips. It will store most sorts of things, including images. It will also enable you to manage your collection. The application window is quite straight-forward. On the left is a column of buttons to help you manage the clips: enabling you to select and move one to the Wndows Clipboard for pasting; delete clip by moving them to Trash; editing the clips; and so on.

To the right is the current set of clips shown as single line entries in a list, hopefully with enough shown to be able to identify which is which. To the right of each line is the identifier of the original source of the clip, for further identification.

Below the clips pane is a series of tabs that show the "Text" or "Image" highlighted above plus a tab for a link to ClipGuru's online Help. Lastly, a tab displays all of the clip sets available.

By default, all clips are gathered together in one set - cg_clips. However, you can choose to set up additional sets and to move snippets to those sets so as to keep like snippets together. I've set one up for my Dooyoo clips, to keep them separate from the day-to-day clips that I copy and paste and which are of a more temporary nature. Double-clicking a set makes it the active one and displays its contents in the other panes.

The latest release of ClipGuru (2.8) has been redesigned for Windows Vista. Vista expects, by convention, that all application data to be held in the appdata store in the user's profile on the C: drive. Previously, ClipGuru had stored all its clips in a file in the application's own directory in Program Files. This is all very well but ClipGuru advertises itself to be portable.

The requirements of Vista conflict with true portability, which states that nothing must be installed on the host machine nor anything left behind once the application is closed down. I discovered this problem when I tried to run ClipGuru from my Sandisk Cruzer data stick. I had tried to find a U3 or PortableApps installation but couldn't. I then simply installed ClipGuru onto a directory on the stick and ran it from there, as recommended by the developers. This is where I discovered the problem.

I have contacted them and explained the issue and, fair enough, they have admitted that they understand the problem and will look into resolving it so that the ClipGuru application can be truly portable in every accepted sense.

For now, ClipGuru does what it is intended to do on my own machine; I can wait for a portable version. It is a huge help with my Dooyoo activities and in consequence, although it doesn't earn itself all five stars right now, should a truly portable version eventually emerge, I will be upgrading my rating.

ClipGuru isn't perfect; what software is? I would like to see a feature that enables a selected clip to be pasted directly to wherever the cursor is located in the background application, but that isn't available right now. I will probably make this suggestion and see what happens.

Best of all though, ClipGuru is Freeware.

Summary: The best solution for managing your clipboard

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