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Clipboard

The Wails Clipboard API provides a simple interface for interacting with the system clipboard. It allows you to read from and write to the clipboard, whilst supporting text data.

Accessing the Clipboard

The clipboard can be accessed through the application instance:

clipboard := app.Clipboard()

Setting Text

To set text to the clipboard, utilise the SetText method:

success := app.Clipboard().SetText("Hello World")
if !success {
    // Handle error
}

The SetText method returns a boolean indicating whether the operation was successful.

Getting Text

To retrieve text from the clipboard, utilise the Text method:

text, ok := app.Clipboard().Text()
if !ok {
    // Handle error
} else {
    // Use the text
}

The Text method returns two values:

  • The text content from the clipboard (string)
  • A boolean indicating whether the operation was successful

Example

Here’s a complete example showing how to create a menu-driven application that demonstrates clipboard operations:

package main


import (
    "log"
    "runtime"
    "time"


    "github.com/wailsapp/wails/v3/pkg/application"
)


func main() {
    app := application.New(application.Options{
        Name:        "Clipboard Demo",
        Description: "A demo of the clipboard API",
        Assets:      application.AlphaAssets,
    })


    // Create a custom menu
    menu := app.NewMenu()
    if runtime.GOOS == "darwin" {
        menu.AddRole(application.AppMenu)
    }


    // Add clipboard operations to menu
    setClipboardMenu := menu.AddSubmenu("Set Clipboard")
    setClipboardMenu.Add("Set Text 'Hello'").OnClick(func(ctx *application.Context) {
        success := app.Clipboard().SetText("Hello")
        if !success {
            application.InfoDialog().SetMessage("Failed to set clipboard text").Show()
        }
    })


    getClipboardMenu := menu.AddSubmenu("Get Clipboard")
    getClipboardMenu.Add("Get Text").OnClick(func(ctx *application.Context) {
        result, ok := app.Clipboard().Text()
        if !ok {
            application.InfoDialog().SetMessage("Failed to get clipboard text").Show()
        } else {
            application.InfoDialog().SetMessage("Got:\n\n" + result).Show()
        }
    })


    clearClipboardMenu := menu.AddSubmenu("Clear Clipboard")
    clearClipboardMenu.Add("Clear Text").OnClick(func(ctx *application.Context) {
        success := app.Clipboard().SetText("")
        if success {
            application.InfoDialog().SetMessage("Clipboard text cleared").Show()
        } else {
            application.InfoDialog().SetMessage("Clipboard text not cleared").Show()
        }
    })


    app.SetMenu(menu)
    app.NewWebviewWindow()


    err := app.Run()
    if err != nil {
        log.Fatal(err.Error())
    }
}

Best Practices

  1. Always check the return values of clipboard operations
  2. Handle failures gracefully with appropriate user feedback
  3. Clear sensitive data from the clipboard when your application exits if it was responsible for putting it there
  4. Consider implementing a timeout mechanism for clipboard operations in critical sections of your application