TaskCopy

Single-click clipboard snippet menu for Windows. Hit a hotkey or right-click the tray icon and a Catppuccin Mocha flyout pops up at your cursor with every snippet you've saved. Click one and it's copied (and optionally auto-pasted into the window you were just in).

About the name: TaskCopy was originally specced as "right-click the bottom taskbar to see snippets." Windows 11's taskbar is a XAML Islands surface inside explorer.exe with no third-party context-menu API — direct extension requires DLL injection via Windhawk. The default build delivers the same UX through a tray icon + global hotkey (the same pattern Ditto and CopyQ use); a Windhawk companion mod remains a future power-user add-on for the literal taskbar trigger. See research/architecture-research.md for the full rationale.

Status

v0.5.12 — premium UX polish. Settings, the flyout, dialogs, empty states, focus states, and high-contrast accent handling have been tightened into a calmer, more consistent interface while preserving the same workflow. The v0.5 line also includes hardening/regression tests, FTS5 search at scale, syntax-highlighted code editing, opt-in shell placeholders, image snippets, reusable form prompts, Espanso YAML import, encrypted backups, per-app rules, multi-clip paste, edit history, usage stats, sticky flyout position, high-contrast mode, external editor integration, and GitHub issue filing. See CHANGELOG.md for the full list and ROADMAP.md for what's next.

Project planning

• ROADMAP.md — active future work.
• COMPLETED.md — shipped feature summary.
• RESEARCH_REPORT.md — current research synthesis.
• docs/archive/research/RESEARCH_FEATURE_PLAN_2026-05-25.md — archived historical audit and acceptance detail.

Features (v0.5.12)

Picker & paste

• Tray icon — left-click opens snippet flyout at the cursor; right-click opens a native Mocha/Latte menu (Open snippets / Settings / About / Quit); double-click opens Settings.
• Global hotkey (Ctrl+Alt+V default) — opens the same flyout from anywhere; rebindable in Settings (safe-fail: the previous combo stays active if a new one can't be registered).
• Flyout search + keyboard nav — type to filter on Title/Body; Up/Down moves the highlight; Enter copies; Esc clears the filter then closes on a second press. Fuzzy/prefix-weighted ranking so sig finds Email signature before design rationale; libraries with 500+ snippets use a maintained SQLite FTS5 index for body search speed.
• Alt+1..9 quick-pick in the open flyout; per-snippet hotkeys (any combo, e.g. Ctrl+Alt+S) for direct copy + auto-paste from anywhere.
• Group chips in the flyout when ≥1 group is defined — click to filter, persists across opens.
• Auto-paste — after copy, TaskCopy restores the previously focused window and synthesises Ctrl+V. Per-snippet "Type characters" mode for apps that swallow Ctrl+V (legacy terminals, RDP sessions, password fields). Default ON; toggle in Settings.

Snippet content

• Placeholders — {{date}} {{date:format}} {{time}} {{time:format}} {{clipboard}} {{cursor}} {{ask:Field}} {{form:Field1|Field2}}, plus opt-in {{shell:cmd}}. A form token prompts once and reuses values through matching {{ask:Field}} tokens. Pipe-chained transforms: {{clipboard|upper}}, {{clipboard|trim|lower}}, {{clipboard|jsonpretty}}, {{clipboard|urldecode}}, {{clipboard|base64decode}}, {{clipboard|sha256}}. Live preview in the editor.
• Groups — organize snippets via the Manage groups dialog; per-snippet Group dropdown; flyout chip strip.
• Image snippets — Settings → Add image captures the current clipboard image into an explicit image snippet, shows thumbnails in Settings and the flyout, and copies/pastes the image back when picked. Background clipboard capture remains text-only.
• Pin to top + flyout sort modes — Manual / Most used (decay-weighted frecency, pinned on top) / Recently used (pinned on top).
• Monospace/code mode per snippet — Settings switches to an AvalonEdit code editor with line numbers and syntax highlighting; flyout tooltips use Cascadia Mono for aligned code.

Reliability & data safety

• SQLite store at %LOCALAPPDATA%\TaskCopy\snippets.db — schema migrations via PRAGMA user_version, journal_mode = WAL, FK enforcement, startup PRAGMA quick_check integrity check with one-click restore.
• JSON / .taskpack / Espanso YAML import + JSON export. JSON export round-trips text and image snippets; Espanso static matches: entries become text snippets while unsupported dynamic matches are skipped. Automatic on-startup backup uses VACUUM INTO (3-deep rotation, throttled to once per 24 h).
• Restore from backup… — Settings → Diagnostics lists the available snapshots and swaps them in atomically (with a pre-restore rollback snapshot in case the user changes their mind).
• Soft-delete trash — confirm-delete then 30-day auto-purge. Trash window in Settings shows trashed snippets with per-row Restore / Delete Permanently / Empty Trash.
• Single-instance handoff via a per-user named pipe; subsequent launches focus an existing window or take a CLI directive.
• Crash log at %LOCALAPPDATA%\TaskCopy\logs\crash.log with 1 MB rotation; one-click "Open log folder" / "Open data folder" / "Copy diagnostics" in Settings.

Optional

• Clipboard auto-capture (opt-in) — keeps the last ~50 plain-text clips and shows them in a flyout "Recent" section above your snippets. Respects ExcludeClipboardContentFromMonitors and reads the 4-byte CanIncludeInClipboardHistory payload correctly (0 = exclude, 1 = include).
• Theme: Mocha / Latte / Follow system (AppsUseLightTheme registry follow). Live swap via prompt-to-relaunch.

Plumbing

• First-run welcome seeds five generic example snippets (no signature identity leakage) and opens Settings.
• Catppuccin Mocha or Latte theme throughout — full dark/light parity with keyboard focus outlines.
• Drag-reorder in the Settings snippet list (or Up/Down buttons).
• AutomationProperties on flyout + Settings for screen readers.
• Per-monitor DPI v2 manifest for sharp rendering across mixed-DPI setups.

Stack

• .NET 10 WPF (single project)
• H.NotifyIcon.Wpf 2.4.1 — tray icon
• NHotkey.Wpf 3.0.0 — global hotkey
• CommunityToolkit.Mvvm 8.4.0 — MVVM primitives
• Microsoft.Data.Sqlite 9.0.0 — snippet store
• YamlDotNet 16.1.0 — Espanso YAML import
• AvalonEdit 6.3.1 — code editor

Install

Prebuilt binary (recommended)

1. Grab the latest TaskCopy-<version>-win-x64.zip from Releases.
2. Unzip somewhere persistent (e.g. %LOCALAPPDATA%\Programs\TaskCopy\).
3. Double-click TaskCopy.exe. The first launch shows a SmartScreen "Don't run" prompt because the binary is unsigned — click More info → Run anyway. (We're working on a signing cert.)
4. Optional: enable Start TaskCopy with Windows in Settings.

The single-file build needs the .NET 10 Desktop Runtime on the box. If you'd rather download a fully self-contained binary (~80 MB, no runtime required), grab TaskCopy-<version>-win-x64-selfcontained.zip instead.

winget

winget install SysAdminDoc.TaskCopy

(Once the package is approved into the public manifest repo.)

Build from source

git clone https://github.com/SysAdminDoc/TaskCopy.git
cd TaskCopy
dotnet restore TaskCopy.sln
dotnet build TaskCopy.sln -c Release -warnaserror
dotnet test TaskCopy.sln -c Release --no-build
.\src\TaskCopy\bin\Release\net10.0-windows\TaskCopy.exe

The icon is checked in. To regenerate it:

powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File tools\generate-icon.ps1

Usage

1. Launch TaskCopy.exe. A tray icon appears with a one-time notification confirming the hotkey.
2. Double-click the tray icon (or pick "Settings…" from the right-click menu) to open Settings; add a few snippets.
3. Right-click the tray icon (or press Ctrl+Alt+V) — a Catppuccin flyout appears at the cursor with your snippets.
4. Click a snippet (or press its number key) to copy + auto-paste it into the window you were just in.

Keyboard cheatsheet

Where	Key	What it does
Anywhere	Ctrl+Alt+V (default)	Open the snippet flyout at the cursor
Anywhere	Your per-snippet hotkey	Copy + auto-paste that snippet directly
Flyout	type	Filter snippets live
Flyout	↑ / ↓	Move selection
Flyout	PgUp / PgDn	Jump 8 rows
Flyout	Enter	Copy the highlighted row
Flyout	Esc (once)	Clear the filter
Flyout	Esc (twice)	Close the flyout
Flyout	Alt+1..Alt+9	Pick the matching visible row
Settings list	Del	Delete the selected snippet
Settings list	Ctrl+N	Add a new snippet
Settings list	F2	Focus the Title editor (rename)
Settings list	drag	Reorder snippets
Tray	left-click	Open snippet flyout at cursor
Tray	right-click	Open the tray context menu
Tray	double-click	Open Settings

CLI flags

TaskCopy is a single-instance app. Launching the exe a second time signals the first instance:

TaskCopy.exe                 # default: bring Settings forward
TaskCopy.exe --settings      # explicit Settings
TaskCopy.exe --flyout        # open the snippet picker at the cursor
TaskCopy.exe --copy <id|title>   # copy that snippet to the clipboard (no paste)
TaskCopy.exe --paste <id|title>  # copy + auto-paste into the foreground window
TaskCopy.exe --list          # write all snippets as "id\tTitle" lines to %LOCALAPPDATA%\TaskCopy\snippets.list

Useful from PowerToys Run, Flow Launcher, the Win+R dialog, or any task scheduler.

License

MIT — see LICENSE.