Hi everyone,
I'm an avid user of the various clipboard manager and I always found in Klipper one of (if not *the*) best in all the GNU/Linux world.
The only problem with it it's the design: Klipper gives almost the same space to what a user always needs (basically, the clipboard) the and to what he needs only few times (bar code support, just as an example).

One of the quickest way to solve this is to separate what the users see when they click with the right and the left mouse button on the Klipper icon.
With the right button press an user should see the the configuration entry, the bar code support, the help entry, the exit entry (pun not intended).
With the left button press, here's what I propose to show:

(For the non-italian users, I just kept the clipboard entries, added a search bar, kept "Enable clipboard actions" and "Clean up the clipboard")

For a comparison, here's how Klipper shows up today (both with right and left click as stated before):


I do know that this can only get better so here I come, asking to show some love for our favourite clipboard manager!

Good catch!
I just got so used to how Klipper currently works that I totally overlooked the obvious.

And your idea of separating the clipboard content from the secondary functions with left- vs. right click absolutely makes sense to me and is consistent with other things we have in the system tray. Actually, I'd go even further and remove "Enable Clipboard Actions" as well, since it's an option and not a primary function. The actual contents plus "Clear Clipboard History" (which I'd then reduce to a simple button with the label "Clear") is what most users need probably 99% of the time.

colomar wrote:Good catch!
I just got so used to how Klipper currently works that I totally overlooked the obvious.

And your idea of separating the clipboard content from the secondary functions with left- vs. right click absolutely makes sense to me and is consistent with other things we have in the system tray. Actually, I'd go even further and remove "Enable Clipboard Actions" as well, since it's an option and not a primary function. The actual contents plus "Clear Clipboard History" (which I'd then reduce to a simple button with the label "Clear") is what most users need probably 99% of the time.

+1!
I didn't remove that because I'm always seen as a _GNOME guy_ who always want to keep things as minimal as possible, but I totally share your opinion.

edmael wrote:+1!
I didn't remove that because I'm always seen as a _GNOME guy_ who always want to keep things as minimal as possible, but I totally share your opinion.

It's not like we're removing the feature, just putting it where it belongs, which is the context menu!

I agree with @ edmael too, I would just ask @ Colomar, how do we make sure, that this good suggestion is not lost, that is, in this case how things work? Colomar talk to who does it, it makes a to do list, or what?

lazyit wrote:I agree with @ edmael too, I would just ask @ Colomar, how do we make sure, that this good suggestion is not lost, that is, in this case how things work? Colomar talk to who does it, it makes a to do list, or what?

We're currently working on getting ideas to developers.

+1 for improving Klipper. It's a wonderful application, but the current interface can be a bit clunky.

I like the idea of simplifying the main interface. It feels like I've read a discussion about the use of left and right mouse button before, but I can't find it at the moment.

I like the inclusion of a filter bar by default. Just make sure you can still navigate the entries with the arrow keys.

lazyit wrote:I agree with @ edmael too, I would just ask @ Colomar, how do we make sure, that this good suggestion is not lost, that is, in this case how things work? Colomar talk to who does it, it makes a to do list, or what?

Thanks Lazy, good point. It would be a shame if those ideas get lost here.

Hans wrote:+1 for improving Klipper. It's a wonderful application, but the current interface can be a bit clunky.

I like the idea of simplifying the main interface. It feels like I've read a discussion about the use of left and right mouse button before, but I can't find it at the moment.

I like the inclusion of a filter bar by default. Just make sure you can still navigate the entries with the arrow keys.

Yes, it should be also keyword friendly, +1 for that.

I'm on it - will try to get in contact with the devs today.

jensreuterberg wrote:I'm on it - will try to get in contact with the devs today.

Oh god, yes!
Let's cross the finger until we hear again from you

Hangon . didn't get the right dev BUT I got a "ask a dev" thread thing going until then. (essentially I'm gonna set up a thread for one dev a week who will answer questions and talk about his or her work). I'm still hunting for the klipper dev.

Great news! Martin Gräßlin has taken maintainership of Klipper and he's asked for input, so now is the perfect time to get our voices heard!
Edmael, if you're still interested in this, it would be great if you could head the effort!

colomar just made me aware of this thread, so I'll post my plans for Klipper and what I would like to see happen.

First of all: nothing will happen for Plasma Next - it's too late. We have small changes like the filter bar is always shown, but otherwise the UI is pretty much like it used to be.

For future releases I don't want klipper to be a dedicated application showing the context menu on left and right click. Instead I want to have it as integrated into Plasma as possible. It should be a Plasmoid which pops up in the systemtray area just like e.g. the Battery plasmoid. Just this will change the user interaction significantly. It's no longer a menu and the menu really constrained us in the user interaction.

This allows us to rethink the UI. Currently the interaction pattern is mostly:
1. Open menu
2. Select an entry - menu closes
3. Open menu again
4. Perform an action like "Edit contents" or "Show barcode" or "Manually invoke action on current clipboard icon"

The big problem in this interaction pattern is that the menu closes once one selected an item.

Now what I think of is providing the per item actions together with the content. E.g. have there some buttons to "edit", "show barcode", "invoke action". We would still need a way to select an item to make it the one which will be pasted, but maybe just clicking an item would be enough to select it.

For those knowing me it should be clear: I'm not interested in doing any UI work (as I really suck at it, am slow with it an rather prefer working on the backend). So what I would prefer is having someone who works on the QML side and I prepare the backend to expose a nice service to be used from the QML side. For my development I will aim at making it possible to have one new backend which can populate both a QML variant as well as the classic menu.

mgraesslin wrote:This allows us to rethink the UI. Currently the interaction pattern is mostly:
1. Open menu
2. Select an entry - menu closes
3. Open menu again
4. Perform an action like "Edit contents" or "Show barcode" or "Manually invoke action on current clipboard icon"

The big problem in this interaction pattern is that the menu closes once one selected an item.

Now what I think of is providing the per item actions together with the content. E.g. have there some buttons to "edit", "show barcode", "invoke action". We would still need a way to select an item to make it the one which will be pasted, but maybe just clicking an item would be enough to select it.

Easy fix to that: hovering over clipboard entry reveals arrow on the rightmost end of the entry. Clicking on that arrow changes view, showing possible actions for that entry and keep Klipper open. Clicking on actions would finally close Klipper.
Not clicking on that arrow would just put the content first on clipboard and close Klipper.

One of the first things I did upon returning to this forum was creating entry to Brainstorm in support of this design project: viewtopic.php?f=83&t=121166 Go vote I would personally move everything but actual clipboard entries out of way, including 'clear'.

daedaluz wrote:

mgraesslin wrote:This allows us to rethink the UI. Currently the interaction pattern is mostly:
1. Open menu
2. Select an entry - menu closes
3. Open menu again
4. Perform an action like "Edit contents" or "Show barcode" or "Manually invoke action on current clipboard icon"

The big problem in this interaction pattern is that the menu closes once one selected an item.

Now what I think of is providing the per item actions together with the content. E.g. have there some buttons to "edit", "show barcode", "invoke action". We would still need a way to select an item to make it the one which will be pasted, but maybe just clicking an item would be enough to select it.

Easy fix to that: hovering over clipboard entry reveals arrow on the rightmost end of the entry. Clicking on that arrow changes view, showing possible actions for that entry and keep Klipper open. Clicking on actions would finally close Klipper.
Not clicking on that arrow would just put the content first on clipboard and close Klipper.

One of the first things I did upon returning to this forum was creating entry to Brainstorm in support of this design project: viewtopic.php?f=83&t=121166 Go vote I would personally move everything but actual clipboard entries out of way, including 'clear'.

That's great, I'll see if I can do something as soon as I lay my hands on GIMP.