Using the clipboard

By their very nature, IPFS hashes are difficult to remember. It becomes quite convenient to store those valuable hashes in a temporary place, and the system’s clipboard is a convenient buffer that will help you keep track of these.

On Linux systems, the selection clipboard will always be used as the primary clipboard, while on other platforms the system’s clipboard will be used.

The clipboard loader

_images/clipboard.png

On the top-right corner of the window sits the clipboard loader button. It records the computer’s clipboard activity and keeps an history of all the IPFS hashes that have been stored in it since the application was started.

Clicking on the arrow next to the clipboard icon will open a menu giving you access to the clipboard’s history as well as actions to browse/explore the IPFS resource currently referenced in the clipboard, if any.

It recognizes the following formats:

  • IPFS CID (version 0), for example QmRifA98t769dzkDv2gQocqJPXGtTySR5dPkyTaUZXtkLo
  • IPFS CID (version 1), for example zb2rhd4c97sLJwmnVvUjW5movikNJaYBMfpfpGP7hktYtt8Bo
  • IPFS path for example /ipfs/QmWzhNYvNaxz41qitbqMaTDbViFoES1NgTuoYC7dAAMJw3/src/tools or /ipfs/QmdjTSAM2xSVsXcusNHRoES4KqkJ5mW17u6oQARTWMuWMF/CHANGES
  • IPNS path for example /ipns/ipfs.io or /ipns/Qmef8KSNLZZfdnrxHZKhCBBynSUFLQ4RrH88wW3sTWxfwB
  • URLs using the fs: or ipfs: scheme for example fs:/ipfs/QmRifA98t769dzkDv2gQocqJPXGtTySR5dPkyTaUZXtkLo
  • HTTP/HTTPs URLs that use an IPFS http gateway (like ipfs.io) for example https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmRifA98t769dzkDv2gQocqJPXGtTySR5dPkyTaUZXtkLo or http://localhost:8080/ipns/peerpad.net.

Passing the mouse over the clipboard button will display a tooltip message giving you information about the status of the clipboard.

Clipboard keyboard shortcuts

  • Ctrl+o will browse the IPFS resource currently referenced in the clipboard
  • Ctrl+e will open the explorer for the IPFS resource currently referenced in the clipboard
  • Ctrl+g will open the DAG viewer for the IPFS resource currently referenced in the clipboard
  • Ctrl+i will open the IPLD Explorer for the IPFS resource currently referenced in the clipboard