simple clipboard history script for Sway window manager and dmenu (might work with other Wayland window managers too)

clipd

#!/usr/bin/env ruby

# https://mpov.timmorgan.org/clipboard-history-in-sway-window-manager/

require 'json'

STORE = "#{ENV['HOME']}/.clipboard-history"
LIMIT = 100

unless File.exist?(STORE)
  File.open(STORE, 'w') { |f| f.write('[]') }
end

puts 'read clips'
clips = JSON.load(File.read(STORE))

if ARGV[0] == 'menu'
  puts 'show menu'
  sel = nil
  IO.popen("dmenu -p 'select a paste'", 'r+') do |io|
    io.write(clips.map(&:to_json).join("\n"))
    io.close_write
    sel = io.read
  end
  exit if sel.empty?
  IO.popen('wl-copy --type text/plain', 'w') { |io| io.write(JSON.parse(sel)) }
else
  loop do
    clip = `wl-paste -n`
    if !clip.strip.empty? && clip != clips.first
      puts 'add clip'
      clips = ([clip] + clips).uniq[0...LIMIT]
      File.open(STORE, 'w') do |file|
        file.puts(JSON.pretty_generate(clips))
      end
    end
    sleep 5
  end
end

Sorry about that. The script assumes there is something in the file I suppose. This should fix it:

echo ‘[]’ > ~/.clipboard-history

Thanks!
It works but every 5 seconds sway resize the current windows.
If I resolve the issue I'd like to use a terminal+fzf instead of dmenu, something like this

EDIT
The issue was for an old version of wl-clipboard!

Hi! @seven1m, I wanted to contact you for some time regarding your blog post you've linked: wl-clipboard 2.0 has introduced the --watch mode, which means it will notify you when the selection changes instead of you having to poll for it every few seconds.

See the man page, bugaevc/wl-clipboard#39 (comment) and bugaevc/wl-clipboard#59 for more info & discussion.

Please update your script & add an update to your blog post (or even write a new one). I'm trying to get everyone off of polling the clipboard to using the --watch mode 😄

Awesome! I'll see about getting this script updated!