Copyright © 2009 Brian P. Hogan

This Rails plugin provides a button that can copy text to the user’s clipboard. You specify the text that should be copied to the clipboard when calling the helper method. This solution uses Flash to provide a near cross-platform solution.

First, install the plugin

script/plugin install git://github.com/napcs/copy_to_clipboard.git

Once installed, copy the SWF file to your public/swf. You can do this easily with

rake clipboard:install

The helper will be mixed in with the rest of your plugins. You can use it in your application like this:

<%=copy_to_clipboard_tag "this goes on the clipboard!",
         :update => "notice",
         :update_message => "Copied something on the clipboard",
         :text_string => "Copy",
         :text_color => "000000",
         :background_color => "FFFFFF",
         :height => 18,
         :width => 72
%>

This generates the embed tags and the javascript method to catch the return response from the movie.

<script language="javascript">
 function copy_button_DoFSCommand(m,a){
   document.getElementById("notice").innerHTML=a;
 }
</script>
<object classid="clsid:d27cdb6e-ae6d-11cf-96b8-444553540000" 
  codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=9,0,0,0" 
  width="72"
  height="18" 
  id="copy_button" 
  align="middle">
    <param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" />
    <param name="allowFullScreen" value="false" />
    <param name="movie" value="/swf/copy_button.swf" />
    <param name="quality" value="high" />
    <param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" />	
    <param name=FlashVars VALUE="button_width=72&icon_image=%2Fswf%2Fclipboard.png&send_to_clipboard=this+goes+on+the+clipboard%21&text_color=000000&background_color=FFFFFF&text_string=Copy&update_text=Copied+something+on+the+clipboard">
    <embed flashvars="button_width=72&icon_image=%2Fswf%2Fclipboard.png&send_to_clipboard=this+goes+on+the+clipboard%21&text_color=000000&background_color=FFFFFF&text_string=Copy&update_text=Copied+something+on+the+clipboard" 
      src="/swf/copy_button.swf" 
      quality="high"
      width="72"
      height=18 
      name="copy_button" 
      align="middle" 
      allowScriptAccess="always" 
      allowFullScreen="false" 
      type="application/x-shockwave-flash"
      pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"/>
</object>

If you don’t want to use the helper, you now have an idea of how this all works so you can enhance it to better suit your needs.

• :update is the div to render the results

• :update_message is the message the movie should place

• :text_string is the text you want to display on the button

• :text_color is the color of the button text. Default is FFFFFF

• :background_color is the background color of the button. Default is 000000

• :height is the height. Default is 36

• :width is the width. It’ll resize the button. Default is 72 and you shouldn’t really go smaller than 54

• :icon_image is the path to an icon image. the size specified in the movie is 18x18. It’ll scale whatever you throw at it.

• You have to have text on the button. I don’t know if I’ll disable that or not. I feel it’s important to tell people what they’re doing.

• Flash 10 requires the button actively be pressed by the user.

• You have to pass the text to the helper. If you want to only pass selected text, it’s up to you to build your own JS to Flash bridge to make that work. The FLA file is included in the plugin folder.

I didn’t know Clippy was available when I wrote this. While I like Clippy, I like this implementation a little more as I find it more flexible for my needs. That said, I did borrow one of Clippy’s images for the default clipboard icon.