Clipboard++ 0.1.0-beta.8

Clipboard++ 0.1.0-beta.8

This prerelease is a large reliability, performance, storage-safety, and workflow update. It remains a beta while the packaged candidate completes the stable 1.0 acceptance checklist.

Startup and responsiveness

• Show the Win32/D3D shell and tray before storage-heavy initialization, then load profile metadata, active history, images, capture, Android, and maintenance through deferred startup stages.
• Open encrypted profile metadata and deserialize active history on background futures; inactive profiles load only when selected or routed.
• Persist history through a coalescing background worker and drain pending changes during rebuild and shutdown.
• Cache named slots, transforms, templates, custom actions, and vault counts to avoid repeated encrypted database queries during rendering.
• Add startup timing, memory/latency telemetry, database metrics, and a repeatable warm/cold benchmark tool.

Popup and Settings polish

• Reorganize Settings into flat feature-owned tabs and compact, uniform cards/tables while keeping the established top-level names.
• Move templates, PCRE2 transforms, and structured paste tools out of Developer and into Clipboard - Paste Tools.
• Redesign the popup command bar into compact Filters, Actions, and Destinations groups with soft wrapping, configurable line colors/rounding, optional counters, and improved multi-selection actions.
• Fix first-launch popup sizing, settings foreground activation, tab/scroll ownership, and DPI scaling for popup controls and the native drag grip.
• Add an Open popup control and direct executable launcher settings.

Configurable workflow actions

• Add encrypted, composable popup workflow buttons with ordered inputs, transforms, conditions, placement, exact hotkeys, confirmations, timeouts, and output routing.
• Support paste, copy, URL, Android, file, history move/tag/pin, and direct executable outputs without invoking a command shell.
• Add safe previews, validation, import/export warnings, file pickers, and protected handling of executable paths, arguments, templates, and action bodies.
• Fix workflow-action deletion with confirmation, database contention handling, and actionable error reporting.

Paste correctness and hotkeys

• Use stable clipboard item IDs throughout popup mutations, filtering, double-click paste, multi-selection, and slot resolution.
• Centralize Clipboard++-generated text writes so templates, transforms, and formatting create one history item with correct clipboardpp.exe source provenance and separate destination diagnostics.
• Preserve ordered {{1}}, {{2}}, and later template interpolation for multiple selections.
• Expand suppression coverage for completed, coalesced, delayed, and unrelated clipboard notifications.
• Fix the pass-through hotkey capture abort for physical chords such as Left Alt+Tab and add a regression test.

Encrypted backup, migration, and recovery

• Add online encrypted backup and verified restart-time restore for clipboard.db, images.db, their independent DPAPI-protected keys, and DPAPI-protected settings.
• Add versioned encrypted state-package transfer for profiles, named slots, transforms, templates, workflow actions, and settings with explicit conflict policies.
• Add safe-mode startup, storage retry/quarantine/fresh-storage recovery, and visible background persistence failures; malformed configuration is retained read-only instead of being silently replaced.
• Recover and retry interrupted plaintext SQLite migrations from their rollback source.
• Roll back simulated mid-restore interruption safely and keep the staged restore retryable.
• Store restore rollback settings as config.json.dpapi rather than plaintext.
• Add transaction rollback and immediate-shutdown flush coverage so interrupted or queued saves retain a recoverable encrypted database.

Privacy, diagnostics, and release preparation

• Add a Release-visible Support & diagnostics tab that creates atomic, reviewable ZIP bundles and guided GitHub issue text without uploading automatically.
• Exclude clipboard/vault contents, images, database pages, keys, DPAPI blobs, raw config, action values, paths, endpoints, credentials, dumps, and paste-debug payloads from support bundles.
• Remove clipboard previews and sensitive paths from eligible logs, correct generated-paste provenance, suppress delayed screenshot pairing during incognito, and improve external-editor scratch cleanup.
• Add the clipboard data-boundary audit, data-safety verification matrix, Settings ownership guide, startup performance report, and full stable release-readiness checklist.
• Add GitHub issue forms for bugs, features, and security triage.

Validation

• Debug builds pass all seven automated executables: DPAPI protection, encrypted SQLite VFS, filter matcher, history encryption, image encryption, clipboard database, and support bundle tests.
• Coverage now includes public beta.1-beta.7 configuration compatibility, legacy JSON/SQLite/DPAPI migration, encrypted backup/restore, corrupted keys, interrupted migration/restore/save, orderly shutdown flushing, exact physical hotkeys, generated-paste deduplication, stable filtered positions, large histories/images/vaults, and support-bundle redaction.

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Downloads

File	Contents
release-x64.zip	Release builds — clipboardpp.exe, clipboardpp_ide.exe, sqlite_editor.exe, json_viewer.exe
debug-x64.zip	Debug builds — *d.exe executables + .pdb symbol files
clipboardpp-android-api-debug.apk	Debug APK for testing the experimental Android clipboard bridge
fonts-installer.zip	fonts.zip + install-fonts.ps1 — run the script to install fonts

No installer required. Unzip and run.

Clipboard++ Version 0.1.0 (Beta 7)

What's new

Encrypted storage and vault

• Added an AES-256-XTS SQLite VFS for clipboard and image databases, with database keys protected by Windows DPAPI.
• Migrated profiles, active history, active-profile state, images, and overflow vault data into encrypted SQLite storage.
• Added a searchable per-profile vault with restore, storage limits, deduplication, exports, and consistent encrypted online backups.
• Updated SQLite Editor to open Clipboard++ encrypted databases and protected image payloads under the owning Windows account.

Hotkeys and paste workflows

• Added exact left/right Ctrl, Alt, and Shift chord support for global actions, history banks, pinned items, profiles, and named slots.
• Added configurable slot-key ranges and double-tap routing when named-slot shortcuts overlap history-bank routes.
• Preserved audited native Windows clipboard formats byte-for-byte with safe bundle and individual-format replay.
• Added encrypted named slots, PCRE2 regex transforms, template interpolation, side-by-side diffs, and structured JSON/XML/SQL paste actions.

Developer tools and UI

• Added the clipboard format inspector, full-payload hex viewer, generated-paste provenance, transform/template editors, and diff/formatting tools.
• Reorganized Settings and Developer pages into clearer compact sections and standardized tables, buttons, filters, and hotkey controls.
• Expanded the profile-aware CLI with history listing/search/item reads, stable-ID mutations, and vault count/search/export/backup commands.

Reliability

• Prevented generated template, transform, and formatted output from being recaptured as duplicate history entries.
• Replaced timing-based suppression with sequence-aware clipboard transactions and private tokens that cover coalesced and delayed-format notifications.
• Separated Clipboard++ as the generated-paste source from the actual foreground destination in diagnostics.
• Expanded database, encryption, filter, migration, and image test coverage.

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Downloads

File	Contents
release-x64.zip	Release builds — clipboardpp.exe, clipboardpp_ide.exe, sqlite_editor.exe, json_viewer.exe
debug-x64.zip	Debug builds — *d.exe executables + .pdb symbol files
clipboardpp-android-api-debug.apk	Debug APK for testing the experimental Android clipboard bridge
fonts-installer.zip	fonts.zip + install-fonts.ps1 — run the script to install fonts

No installer required. Unzip and run.

Clipboard++ Version 0.1.0 (Beta 6)

What's New in Beta 6

Android Accessibility Sync

• Added Clipboard++ Clipboard Sync, an Android Accessibility Service that detects likely Copy/Cut actions while Gboard or another keyboard remains active.
• Android sync now routes through an invisible foreground sync activity instead of relying on the floating button as the primary trigger.
• The foreground sync activity reads the current Android primary clipboard, deduplicates captured text, and pushes missing items to Windows over the existing LAN HTTP bridge.
• Removed the visible sync dialog and toast from the automatic foreground sync path.
• Kept the Clipboard++ Capture Keyboard / IME and floating sync button as fallback/manual tools.
• Updated the main README, Android README, and CHANGES with the accessibility sync workflow.

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Downloads

File	Contents
release-x64.zip	Release builds — clipboardpp.exe, clipboardpp_ide.exe, sqlite_editor.exe, json_viewer.exe
debug-x64.zip	Debug builds — *d.exe executables + .pdb symbol files
clipboardpp-android-api-debug.apk	Debug APK for testing the experimental Android clipboard bridge
fonts-installer.zip	fonts.zip + install-fonts.ps1 — run the script to install fonts

No installer required. Unzip and run.

Clipboard++ Version 0.1.0 (Beta 5)

What's New in Beta 5

Android Clipboard Bridge

• New Clipboard++ Android companion app for clipboard capture and local-network sync
• Android -> Windows sync with a dedicated Android list in the Clipboard++ popup
• Windows -> Android send actions from any Clipboard++ profile item context menu
• Floating Android sync flow for capturing the current Android clipboard and pushing missing items to Windows
• Missing-item reconciliation so already captured Android items can be pushed again if Windows does not currently have them
• Persistent Android endpoint setting in Settings -> Android, with save/test/clear controls
• Popup Android sync/test controls and endpoint setup fallback
• Configurable global Send selection to Android hotkey, defaulting to Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Z

Windows Integration

• Local Windows Android sync server on port 8766
• Android device HTTP client for sending text to the companion app
• New Android API endpoints for health, items, clipboard set, reorder, pin, active item, remove, and Windows sync trigger

Supporting Work

• Added Clipboard++ IDE/editor target
• Added custom filter plumbing and filter matcher tests
• Vendored PCRE2 for regex-backed filters
• Vendored Scintilla for editor work
• Added screenshot tracking, toast/editor UI files, popup refinements, Android README updates, CHANGES.md, and new Android bridge screenshots

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Downloads

File	Contents
release-x64.zip	Release builds — clipboardpp.exe, clipboardpp_ide.exe, sqlite_editor.exe, json_viewer.exe
debug-x64.zip	Debug builds — *d.exe executables + .pdb symbol files
clipboardpp-android-api-debug.apk	Debug APK for testing the experimental Android clipboard bridge
fonts-installer.zip	fonts.zip + install-fonts.ps1 — run the script to install fonts

No installer required. Unzip and run.

Clipboard++ Version 0.1.0 (Beta 4)

What's New in Beta 4

Exe Icon Theming

• The app icon (taskbar, file explorer) now automatically updates to match your chosen theme colors when the app exits
• Custom .ico file support: browse and set your own icon in Settings → Appearance
• Icon uses all 7 standard Windows sizes (16, 24, 32, 48, 64, 128, 256 px)
• Patching is skipped when theme colors haven't changed (hash-based detection)

Window Management Fixes

• Minimize button now correctly minimizes the settings window to the Windows taskbar
• Maximize / Restore button works correctly and constrains to monitor work area (no overlap with taskbar)
• Fixed: native DWM title bar chrome was overlapping client area on Windows 11 — all four title bar buttons now render in the correct positions
• Title bar button hit zones corrected so minimize/maximize/exit/close each map to the right button

UI & Layout

• Input fields (e.g. window width/height) now size themselves correctly at any font size or DPI scale
• New layout helper functions for consistent button and section sizing throughout the settings UI
• Passthrough hotkeys support added

Under the Hood

• Icon patching runs as a lightweight subprocess after the main app exits (no delay to shutdown)
• Icon temp files stored in %APPDATA%\Clipboard++\ to avoid touching the install directory
• Config now persists: custom icon path, theme icon hash, UI helper text settings, passthrough hotkeys

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Downloads

File	Contents
release-x64.zip	Release builds — clipboardpp.exe, sqlite_editor.exe, json_viewer.exe
debug-x64.zip	Debug builds — *d.exe executables + .pdb symbol files
fonts-installer.zip	fonts.zip + install-fonts.ps1 — run the script to install fonts

No installer required. Unzip and run.

Clipboard++ Version 0.1.0 (Beta 3)

What's New in Beta 3

Theme-driven icon

• In-app icon (title bar, About page) redraws live with the active theme — no texture, fully procedural
• System tray icon regenerates automatically on every theme switch
• 5 new color pickers in Appearance settings: Board top, Board bottom, Paper, Margin line, Ruled lines
• All 12 built-in themes auto-derive icon colors from their palette

Title bar button colors

Minimize, Maximize/Restore, and Close buttons now have individually configurable base and hover colors in Settings → Appearance.

Image store

• Copied images are captured, deduplicated, and stored under %APPDATA%\Clipboard++\images\
• In-app browser with thumbnail grid in Settings → Images
• Click any thumbnail to copy it back to the clipboard

Sub-projects

• sqlite_editor.exe — standalone SQLite database viewer and query tool
• json_viewer.exe — standalone JSON file viewer with tree view and syntax highlighting
• Each ships a .reg template for Windows Explorer right-click shell integration

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Downloads

release-x64.zip — Run the app

Contains the Release builds of all three tools:

• clipboardpp.exe — main clipboard manager
• sqlite_editor.exe — SQLite database viewer
• json_viewer.exe — JSON file viewer

Unzip anywhere and run. No installer required.

debug-x64.zip — For developers / bug reports

Contains Debug builds with full symbol information:

• clipboardppd.exe, sqlite_editord.exe, json_viewerd.exe — debug executables
• clipboardpp.pdb, sqlite_editor.pdb, json_viewer.pdb — debug symbols

Use these if you are investigating a crash or contributing to the project. The .pdb files allow debuggers to show full stack traces with function names and line numbers.

fonts-installer.zip — Optional bundled fonts

Contains a curated set of fonts and an installer script:

• fonts.zip — the font files
• install-fonts.ps1 — extracts fonts to %APPDATA%\Clipboard++\fonts\ automatically

How to use:

1. Unzip fonts-installer.zip anywhere
2. Right-click install-fonts.ps1 → Run with PowerShell (or run from a terminal: .\install-fonts.ps1)
3. Open Clipboard++ → Settings → Appearance → Font to select an installed font

You can also import any .ttf or .otf font manually from the Appearance settings page without using this package.

Clipboard++ v0.1.0 Beta 2

Clipboard++ v0.1.0 Beta 2

A Windows clipboard manager built with C++17, Win32, Dear ImGui, and DirectX 11. No installer, no runtime dependencies — single portable executable.

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What's New Since Beta 1

Clipboard Profile Picker (major UX overhaul)

• The separate dropdown arrow button is gone — the profile name input in the popup title bar is now an integrated combo. Click to open the profile list, type to name a new profile, click Save to create it.
• Right-click any profile in the list: Duplicate (creates "name - duplicate") or Delete (red confirmation modal)
• Cannot delete the last remaining profile

Animated Popup Outline

• Multi-color cycling outline around the popup window
• Configurable speed, color spread, sharpness, saturation, brightness, reverse direction
• Toggle on/off; parameters exposed in Appearance settings

System Tray Popup

• Click the tray icon for a compact overlay: Open Clipboard++, Show Popup, Incognito toggle, About, Exit

Debug Console Window (Alt+Shift+D)

• Floating timestamped event log with copy-all, clear, and follow-tail
• 256 KB circular buffer

DPI Awareness and Scrollbar Theming

• Improved DPI-aware rendering for high-DPI and mixed-DPI monitors
• Scrollbar color, width, rounding, and padding are fully theme-aware

Appearance Overhaul

• 12 built-in themes: Dark Default, Dracula, Nord, Monokai, One Dark Pro, Tokyo Night, Solarized Dark, GitHub Dark, GitHub Light, Solarized Light, VS Light, Quiet Light
• 14 individually configurable UI colors
• Save and name unlimited custom themes

Code Quality

• Deduplicated helpers and extracted shared utilities
• Named constants replacing magic numbers throughout
• imgui_demo.cpp removed from the build (was dead code)

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Features

Quick Paste Popup (Ctrl+Shift+V)

• Always-on-top, never steals focus from the target app
• Keyboard slot paste: 1-9, a-z to instantly paste that item
• Search with live filtering (Ctrl+Shift+S opens with search focused)
• Web search with Shift+Enter from the search bar
• 10 content type filters: All, Text, Image, URL, File, Code, Secret, JSON, Email, Color
• Queue mode: select multiple items and paste in sequence
• Pinned entries: stays at the top, separate slot numbering, excluded from overflow
• Drag-and-drop reordering
• Opacity knob + outline strength knob (mouse wheel to adjust)

Item Right-Click Menu

Paste / Copy / Add-Remove Queue / Move Top / Move Bottom / Pin-Unpin / Delete

Multiple Clipboard Profiles

• Unlimited named profiles, each with its own independent history
• Bind a profile to an app's .exe — popup auto-switches when that app gains focus
• Auto-create new profiles for unrecognized processes (optional)
• Select profiles by hotkey slot: Alt+Shift+1-9, A-Z, F1-F12

Content Type Detection (30+ tags)

Category	Tags
Network	URL, Email, IP Address
Code	Code, SQL, Command, Script, Config
Data	JSON, XML, HTML, CSV, Markdown, Base64, Hex Color, UUID, Date, Log, Phone
Security	Secret: AWS keys, GitHub tokens, JWTs, PEM blocks, Slack tokens, API keys
Files	File, Folder, Path, Image, Document, Archive, Executable, Script, Data, Audio, Video

Secret items shown in red. Auto-discard available in Privacy settings.

Configurable Hotkeys

Action	Default
Toggle popup	Ctrl+Shift+V
Popup with search	Ctrl+Shift+S
Open settings	Ctrl+Shift+,
Web search clipboard	Ctrl+Shift+G
Toggle debug window	Alt+Shift+D
Hidden paste regular slot	Ctrl+Alt+1-9/A-Z/F1-F12
Hidden paste pinned slot	Ctrl+Shift+1-9/A-Z/F1-F12
Select profile slot	Alt+Shift+1-9/A-Z/F1-F12

Privacy

• Secret pattern detection and optional auto-discard
• Clear history on Windows lock
• Per-process exclusion list (KeePass, 1Password, Bitwarden by default)

CLI

clipboardpp.exe --show
clipboardpp.exe --popup
clipboardpp.exe status
clipboardpp.exe config --list
clipboardpp.exe config --get popup.opacity
clipboardpp.exe config --set popup.opacity 0.85
clipboardpp.exe --clipboard get
clipboardpp.exe --clipboard set "text"
clipboardpp.exe --clipboard insert "text" --top

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Installation

Download clipboardpp.exe, run it. Starts in the system tray.

Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 (x64). No Visual C++ redistributable needed — static runtime.

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Building from Source

Prerequisites: Visual Studio 2022 with Desktop development with C++, CMake 3.20+, Git

git clone https://github.com/james28909/clipboard-plus-plus.git
cd clipboard-plus-plus
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build build --config Release
# Output: build\Release\clipboardpp.exe

The build stops any running clipboardpp.exe before linking and launches the new build after success.
To disable: cmake -S . -B build -DCLIPBOARDPP_RESTART_AFTER_BUILD=OFF

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Configuration Paths

%APPDATA%\Clipboard++\config.json          Settings and profile metadata
%APPDATA%\Clipboard++\fonts\               Imported fonts
%APPDATA%\Clipboard++\history\<id>.json    Per-profile clipboard history

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Known Limitations (Beta)

• History files are plain JSON — DPAPI-backed encrypted vault not yet implemented
• Privacy exclusions UI is partial
• Some developer tools are stubs

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Built with: Dear ImGui · nlohmann/json · DirectX 11 · Win32

Clipboard++ v0.1.0 Beta 1

Clipboard++

Clipboard++ is a Windows clipboard manager built with C++17, Win32, Dear ImGui, DirectX 11, and CMake. It runs as a tray app with a main settings window, an always-on-top quick paste popup, configurable hotkeys, multiple clipboard profiles, and a command-line interface for automation.

This project is under active development. Core clipboard capture, popup paste workflows, configurable hotkeys, multi-clipboard profiles, custom themes, and CLI/config commands are implemented. The encrypted vault and some advanced privacy/developer features are planned but not complete yet.

Features

• Clipboard monitoring for text, images, file/folder paths, and common structured content.
• Quick paste popup with search, filter buttons, queue mode, pinned entries, regular history, drag/drop ordering, and right-click item actions.
• Separate pinned and regular history numbering.
• Hidden paste hotkeys for regular history and pinned entries.
• Multiple named clipboard profiles with optional process-aware switching.
• Configurable hotkeys from the settings UI.
• Custom appearance settings with built-in themes, font support, popup opacity/size controls, color pickers, live preview mockups, and named saved custom themes.
• CLI/config commands for showing windows, editing settings, reading/writing the Windows clipboard, and inserting items into Clipboard++ history.
• Developer mode foundations with diagnostics, event logging, source process metadata, and runtime details.

Platform

• Windows 10+
• Visual Studio 2022 / MSVC
• CMake 3.20+
• C++17

The app is configured to use the static MSVC runtime.

Repository Layout

src/
  app/          Application lifetime, config, tray, main window ownership
  clipboard/    Clipboard items, history, monitor, content detection, persistence
  cli/          Command-line interface
  hotkeys/      Global keyboard/mouse hook handling and configurable bindings
  ipc/          IPC helpers for short-lived CLI processes
  ui/           Main settings window, popup window, appearance/theme code
  util/         Shared Win32 helpers

resources/      Windows resources
third_party/    Vendored Dear ImGui and nlohmann/json
SPEC.md         Larger feature specification and milestone notes
AGENTS.md       Detailed implementation notes for coding agents

Build

The project is normally built from Visual Studio using the CMake project.

From a Developer PowerShell or from this repo root, this command has been used successfully:

Stop-Process -Name clipboardpp -Force -ErrorAction SilentlyContinue
& cmd.exe /c '"C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Professional\Common7\Tools\VsDevCmd.bat" -arch=x64 -host_arch=x64 >nul && "C:\Program Files\Microsoft Visual Studio\2022\Professional\Common7\IDE\CommonExtensions\Microsoft\CMake\CMake\bin\cmake.exe" --build out\build\x64-Debug --config Debug'

The debug executable is typically produced at:

out\build\x64-Debug\clipboardpp.exe

CLIPBOARDPP_RESTART_AFTER_BUILD is enabled by default in CMakeLists.txt. On Windows, the build stops a running clipboardpp.exe before linking and launches the freshly built executable after a successful build.

Basic Usage

Run the app:

out\build\x64-Debug\clipboardpp.exe

Default hotkeys:

Action	Default
Open quick paste popup	Ctrl+Shift+V
Open popup with search focused	Ctrl+Shift+S
Open settings	Ctrl+Shift+,
Hidden paste regular history	Ctrl+Alt+1-9, A-Z, F1-F12
Hidden paste pinned entries	Ctrl+Shift+1-9, A-Z, F1-F12
Select clipboard profile slot	Alt+Shift+1-9, A-Z, F1-F12

The exact bindings can be changed from Settings -> Hotkeys.

Popup Notes

The popup is designed to stay on top without stealing focus from the app you are pasting into. It supports:

• keyboard slot paste from visible filtered results
• mouse paste
• queue mode
• pinned entries
• regular history
• right-click item actions
• drag/drop reordering
• search
• web search with Shift+Enter from the search box
• custom opacity from the title bar knob

Right-clicking an item currently exposes actions such as paste, copy to clipboard, add/remove queue, move to top/bottom, pin/unpin, and delete.

CLI

Show help:

clipboardpp.exe --help

Common commands:

clipboardpp.exe --show
clipboardpp.exe --popup
clipboardpp.exe status
clipboardpp.exe status --format json
clipboardpp.exe config --list
clipboardpp.exe config --get popup.opacity
clipboardpp.exe config --set popup.opacity 0.85
clipboardpp.exe config --reset-font
clipboardpp.exe --clipboard get
clipboardpp.exe --clipboard set "hello from the CLI"
clipboardpp.exe --clipboard insert "save this in history" --top
clipboardpp.exe --clipboard "C:\Temp\report.pdf" --bottom --system

Commands that insert into Clipboard++ history require the tray app to be running. Config commands can update config.json even when the app is not running, and will ask the running app to reload when possible.

Configuration

Configuration is stored under the current user's roaming app data folder:

%APPDATA%\Clipboard++\config.json

Managed imported fonts are stored in:

%APPDATA%\Clipboard++\fonts\

The Appearance page can save named custom themes into config.json.

Current Development Status

Implemented:

• clipboard capture and history list
• pinned entries and regular history sections
• multi-clipboard profile metadata
• process-aware clipboard profile routing foundations
• popup paste/search/filter/queue/context menu workflows
• configurable hotkeys
• CLI/config commands
• custom appearance editor and saved custom themes
• developer diagnostics foundation

Planned or partial:

• encrypted vault/archive
• full DPAPI-backed history/vault storage model
• privacy exclusions and secret-handling policy UI
• richer developer tools such as raw format inspection, transforms, templates, exports, and pretty-print workflows

License

License information has not been finalized in this README yet.