Plak

Run a local webserver in Windows to use the copypaste clipboard in Bash on Ubuntu on Windows.

$ wpaste > ~/clipboard-contents
$ fortune | wcopy

Building

If you want to build the project yourself instead of downloading a release: Open the plak.sln solution with Visual Studio. The Community edition will suffice. Build the project to get Plak.Windows.exe.

Prerequisites

Install the FSharp.Core.dll library. For example by installing the .NET SDK. In issue #1 a more lightweight way was found: obtaining the DLL file directly from a F# repository. Pull requests are welcome to improve this installation workflow for users.

Installation in Windows

1. Press Windows + R, type shell:startup, and press Enter.
2. With the right mouse button, drag Plak.Windows.exe to your Startup folder and choose Create shortcuts here.
3. You may want to change the port number from the default (9001). To do so, press Alt + Enter and add a port number to Target, e.g. C:\Plak.Windows.exe 8080.
4. Launch the shortcut.

Note that Plak runs in the background. If you want to stop using Plak, use Task Manager to end the Plak.Windows task.

Installation in Ubuntu

Bash

Add to ~/.bashrc:

PLAKPORT=9001
alias wcopy="curl -s -X PUT \
 -H 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8' \
 http://localhost:${PLAKPORT}/clipboard \
 --data-binary @-"
alias wpaste="curl -s http://localhost:${PLAKPORT}/clipboard"

Emacs

Add to your init file:

(defvar plak-port 9001)
(defun wcopy ()
  "Copies with Plak"
  (interactive)
  (shell-command-on-region (region-beginning) (region-end)
    (concat "curl -s -X PUT "
            "-H 'Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8' "
            "http://localhost:" (number-to-string plak-port) "/clipboard "
            "--data-binary @-")))
(defun wpaste ()
  "Pastes with Plak"
  (interactive)
  (insert (shell-command-to-string (concat "curl -s http://localhost:"
                                           (number-to-string 9001)
                                           "/clipboard"))))

Now you can use or keymap the wcopy and wpaste commands.

License

Copyright © 2016 Sander Dijkhuis

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.