Jumpcut: Super slick clipboard extender
Some time ago, matonmacs 
mentioned the utility Jumpcut in a comment on a post about the Cute Clips clipboard extender.
I’d forgotten about it, until I came across Ryan Irelan’s post about using Textpander and Jumpcut in web development.
Jumpcut is a nifty little menubar utility that keeps a history of your clipboard. Its Preferences allow you to specify how many past clippings it should remember and display, how often it should save the list and the keyboard hotkey.
Although you can access the clips from the menubar, pressing the hotkey brings up a bezel display:
You can cycle through the clips using the hotkeys and then drop in the one you want.
It can save you a lot of time in Mail.app and elsewhere.
All that’s missing is the option to make the selections “sticky” like you can in CuteClips.
Jumpcut is open-source and a universal binary. It is available from the developer’s web site .
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May 6th, 2006 at 1:31 am
I’m not an expert with this, but I think that QuickSilver’s Clipboard plugin gives you similar functionality. You can specify how large you want your clipboard and quickly locate past entries to paste into whatever application you want.
QuickSilver also has a “shelf” that is like a clipboard history, but you manually manage it. It’s sorta like “buffers” in VI — clipboards that you manage yourself. You can put anything on the shelf at any time and take anything off it at any time. You can also paste things in from the shelf just like it is a clipboard history.
Maybe these apps have an edge on QuickSilver’s plugins. Again, I’m not an expert. However, I know lots of people who would live and die by the QuickSilver clipboard history and shelf.
May 6th, 2006 at 1:38 am
I haven’t counted them exactly, or performed rigorous empirical testing, but it’s my gut feeling that the dedicated clipboard extender apps deliver the clips you want with fewer keystrokes.
Of course, as you suggest, fewer keystrokes are not the only thing. I know people too who would rather perform the extra keystrokes in Quicksilver, just because it’s Quicksilver.
May 6th, 2006 at 2:23 am
Since you mention Textpander, why not also mention that Butler (by Peter Maurer) comes with the same functionality. I have 10 clipboards, ctrl-cmd-v brings them, I see them all at once, and hitting the number they are given lets me paste that one in. Totally excellent and easy and already part of a piece of software I use every day. You have to use a different Butler command to get some text snippet dumped out, but I have about 10 of those, too…
May 6th, 2006 at 2:29 pm
The problem with Quicksilver is the documentation is so sparse. I had no idea it did anything like this. I’d also never be able to figure out its manually managed “shelves” without instruction. Someone really needs to write a lengthy tutorial or a book on Quicksilver.
Thanks for pointing out Jumpcut. It’s simple and easy to use. I like it.
May 8th, 2006 at 8:36 am
Oh come on Tim, can’t I get a little link love to my blog (Mat on Macs). :)
I’ve tried to make myself use the Clipboard module in QS (being a huge fan), but most if the time it just seems easier to mouse up to the menubar. I’ve since discovered another nice clipboard manager iPaste, which is quite cool for having on feature I haven’t seen anywhere else—a contextual menu. This, I think, could be very cool if they’d add labels to it (I posted this suggestion to their forums but got no response). iPaste is $12.99, though, so I think I’ll stick to the free Jumpcut for the time being.
May 8th, 2006 at 8:45 am
That was poor form on my part.
Belated link love now features in the post. Sorry about that!
August 21st, 2006 at 11:27 pm
[...] This means the the DockNote now contains a viable clipboard recorder, which could potentially replace apps like JumpCut or CuteClips. [...]