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Executable
Source Code (C#)

Description:

ClipStrip is an application designed to make pasting thing between applications easier, to often when pasting from one source to another (the web to Gmail for instance) the formatting of the text from the web does not match the rest of your document. There are other ways of solving this issue, but this method is the easiest I’ve found.

The way it works: When you copy something to the clipboard, the program checks to see if that is Rich Formated text, or Unicode text, and converts it to Plain text, then it stores the text back into the clipboard, so when you paste it from the clipboard you get just the text.

The application, will start, enabled, and an icon will be available in the system tray, right click the icon for the ability to disable, enable, and exit the application, the icon will change to reflect its status.

**Note: as of writing this application does not work with OpenOffice due to the way it implements its clipboard

Notable Code:

This application was based on some VERY old source code, so the forms part of it is not the cleanest, but there is a great deal of interesting code [to me] in this little application, some of my favorites are

• Forced single Instance
• Use of embedded resources
• Hook into clipboard via windows API

using System;
using System.Drawing;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Reflection;
using System.Diagnostics;

namespace ClipStrip
{
	public class Form1 : System.Windows.Forms.Form
	{
		[DllImport("User32.dll")]
		protected static extern int SetClipboardViewer(int hWndNewViewer);

		[DllImport("User32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
		public static extern bool ChangeClipboardChain(IntPtr hWndRemove, IntPtr hWndNewNext);

		[DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet=CharSet.Auto)]
        public static extern int SendMessage(IntPtr hwnd, int wMsg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);
       
        private NotifyIcon notifyIcon1;
        private ContextMenuStrip contextMenuStrip1;
        private ToolStripMenuItem enableToolStripMenuItem;
        private ToolStripMenuItem disabledToolStripMenuItem;
        private ToolStripMenuItem exitToolStripMenuItem;
        private IContainer components;
        
        //my defines
        IntPtr nextClipboardViewer;
        private bool isOn = true;        
        Icon off;        
        Icon on;

		public Form1()
		{
			InitializeComponent();
			nextClipboardViewer = (IntPtr)SetClipboardViewer((int) this.Handle);
		}

		protected override void Dispose( bool disposing )
		{
			ChangeClipboardChain(this.Handle, nextClipboardViewer);
			if( disposing )
			{
				if (components != null) 
				{
					components.Dispose();
				}
			}
			base.Dispose( disposing );
		}

		#region Windows Form Designer generated code
		/// 

		/// Required method for Designer support - do not modify
		/// the contents of this method with the code editor.
		/// 
		private void InitializeComponent()
		{
            this.components = new System.ComponentModel.Container();
            System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager resources = new System.ComponentModel.ComponentResourceManager(typeof(Form1));
            this.notifyIcon1 = new System.Windows.Forms.NotifyIcon(this.components);
            this.contextMenuStrip1 = new System.Windows.Forms.ContextMenuStrip(this.components);
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.exitToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.disabledToolStripMenuItem = new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripMenuItem();
            this.contextMenuStrip1.SuspendLayout();
            this.SuspendLayout();
            // 
            // notifyIcon1
            // 
            this.notifyIcon1.ContextMenuStrip = this.contextMenuStrip1;
            this.notifyIcon1.Icon = ((System.Drawing.Icon)(resources.GetObject("notifyIcon1.Icon")));
            this.notifyIcon1.Text = "ClipStrip";
            this.notifyIcon1.Visible = true;
            // 
            // contextMenuStrip1
            // 
            this.contextMenuStrip1.Items.AddRange(new System.Windows.Forms.ToolStripItem[] {
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem,
            this.disabledToolStripMenuItem,
            this.exitToolStripMenuItem});
            this.contextMenuStrip1.Name = "contextMenuStrip1";
            this.contextMenuStrip1.ShowCheckMargin = true;
            this.contextMenuStrip1.ShowImageMargin = false;
            this.contextMenuStrip1.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(153, 92);
            // 
            // enableToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem.Checked = true;
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem.CheckOnClick = true;
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem.CheckState = System.Windows.Forms.CheckState.Checked;
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem.Name = "enableToolStripMenuItem";
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem.Text = "Enabled";
            this.enableToolStripMenuItem.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.enableToolStripMenuItem_Click);
            // 
            // exitToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.exitToolStripMenuItem.Name = "exitToolStripMenuItem";
            this.exitToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
            this.exitToolStripMenuItem.Text = "Exit";
            this.exitToolStripMenuItem.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.exitToolStripMenuItem_Click);
            // 
            // disabledToolStripMenuItem
            // 
            this.disabledToolStripMenuItem.Name = "disabledToolStripMenuItem";
            this.disabledToolStripMenuItem.Size = new System.Drawing.Size(152, 22);
            this.disabledToolStripMenuItem.Text = "Disabled";
            this.disabledToolStripMenuItem.Click += new System.EventHandler(this.disabledToolStripMenuItem_Click);
            // 
            // Form1
            // 
            this.AutoScaleBaseSize = new System.Drawing.Size(5, 13);
            this.ClientSize = new System.Drawing.Size(205, 167);
            this.FormBorderStyle = System.Windows.Forms.FormBorderStyle.FixedToolWindow;
            this.Name = "Form1";
            this.ShowIcon = false;
            this.ShowInTaskbar = false;
            this.Text = "ClipStrip";
            this.WindowState = System.Windows.Forms.FormWindowState.Minimized;
            this.Load += new System.EventHandler(this.Form1_Load);
            this.contextMenuStrip1.ResumeLayout(false);
            this.ResumeLayout(false);

		}
		#endregion

		[STAThread]
		static void Main() 
		{
            // Get Reference to the current Process
            Process thisProc = Process.GetCurrentProcess();
            // Check how many total processes have the same name as the current one
            if (Process.GetProcessesByName(thisProc.ProcessName).Length > 1)
            {
                // If ther is more than one, than it is already running.                
                MessageBox.Show("Running more than one will cause literally infinite problems, this instance will be terminated.", "Error: Application is already running", MessageBoxButtons.OK, MessageBoxIcon.Error);
                Application.Exit();
                return;
            }

			Application.Run(new Form1());
            
		}

        protected override void WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m)
		{
			// defined in winuser.h
			const int WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD = 0x308;
			const int WM_CHANGECBCHAIN = 0x030D;

			switch(m.Msg)
			{
				case WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD:
                    //convert the data
					ConvertClipboardData();
					SendMessage(nextClipboardViewer, m.Msg, m.WParam, m.LParam);
					break;

				case WM_CHANGECBCHAIN:
					if (m.WParam == nextClipboardViewer)
						nextClipboardViewer = m.LParam;
					else
						SendMessage(nextClipboardViewer, m.Msg, m.WParam, m.LParam);
					break;

				default:
					base.WndProc(ref m);
					break;
			}	
		}

		void ConvertClipboardData()		
		{
            if (isOn == true)
            {
                try
                {
                    IDataObject iClpBrd = new DataObject();
                    //make a local instance of the clipboard
                    iClpBrd = Clipboard.GetDataObject();

                    //check for formatted text based datatypes
                    if (iClpBrd.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.Rtf) || iClpBrd.GetDataPresent(DataFormats.UnicodeText))
                    {
                        //if the data in the clipboard is Rich Text or Unicode Text, then convert it to Text type 
                        //and write it back to the clipboard.
                        Clipboard.SetData(DataFormats.Text, ((string)iClpBrd.GetData(DataFormats.Text)));
                    }
                }
                catch (Exception err)
                {
                    MessageBox.Show(err.Message);
                }
            }
            else
            {
                //do nothing, off state code here.
            }
		}

        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            this.Hide();
            //load the icons from the Assembly           
            off = new Icon(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("ClipStrip.off.ico"));
            on = new Icon(Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("ClipStrip.on.ico"));            
        }


        //Handle the toolbar clicks
        private void enableToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            isOn = true;
            notifyIcon1.Icon = on;
            enableToolStripMenuItem.CheckState = CheckState.Checked;
            disabledToolStripMenuItem.CheckState = CheckState.Unchecked;
        }

        private void disabledToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            isOn = false;
            notifyIcon1.Icon = off;
            enableToolStripMenuItem.CheckState = CheckState.Unchecked;
            disabledToolStripMenuItem.CheckState = CheckState.Checked;
        }

        private void exitToolStripMenuItem_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
            Application.Exit();
        }
	}
}