How to copy to clipboard with X11?

Question

Using the frameworks on OS X, I can use the following to copy a PNG to the pasteboard (in C — obviously I could use NSPasteboard with Cocoa):

#include 

        

Answer 1

The ability to store data on the GTK clipboard after a program terminates is not well supported. GTK.clipboard.store may fail to store larger images (greater than several hundred kB), and advanced desktop features like compiz may conflict with this mechanism. One solution without these drawbacks is to run a simple gtk application in the background. The following Python server application uses the Pyro package to expose the methods of ImageToClipboard:

#! /usr/bin/env python
# gclipboard-imaged.py
import gtk, sys, threading;
import Pyro.core;

class ImageToClipboard(Pyro.core.ObjBase):
   def __init__(self, daemon):
      Pyro.core.ObjBase.__init__(self)
      self.daemon = daemon;
   def _set_image(self, img):
      clp = gtk.clipboard_get();
      clp.set_image(img);
   def set_image_from_filename(self, filename):
      with gtk.gdk.lock:
         img = gtk.gdk.pixbuf_new_from_file(filename);
         self._set_image(img);
   def quit(self):
      with gtk.gdk.lock:
         gtk.main_quit();
      self.daemon.shutdown();

class gtkThread( threading.Thread ):
   def run(self):
      gtk.main();

def main():
   gtk.gdk.threads_init();
   gtkThread().start();
   Pyro.core.initServer();
   daemon = Pyro.core.Daemon();
   uri = daemon.connect(ImageToClipboard(daemon),"imagetoclipboard")
   print "The daemon running on port:",daemon.port
   print "The object's uri is:",uri
   daemon.requestLoop();
   print "Shutting down."
   return 0;

if __name__=="__main__":
   sys.exit( main() )

Start this program as a background process, i.e.

gclipboard-imaged.py &

The following example client application sets the clipboard image using a filename given at the command line:

#! /usr/bin/env python
# gclipboard-setimage.py
import Pyro.core, sys;

serverobj =  Pyro.core.getProxyForURI("PYROLOC://localhost:7766/imagetoclipboard");
filename = sys.argv[1];
serverobj.set_image_from_filename(filename);

To copy an image to the clipboard, run

gclipboard-setimage.py picname.png