COPY AND PASTE BUFFER

• US 20130139087A1
• Filed: 11/29/2011
• Published: 05/30/2013
• Est. Priority Date: 11/29/2011
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Red Hat Israel Ltd. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Red Hat Israel Ltd. (International Business Machines Corporation)
• Inventors: Eylon, Yaniv
• Granted Patent: US 9,069,432 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/770
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/048 Interaction techniques based on graphical user interfaces [GUI]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/166 Editing, e.g. inserting or deleting
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/543 User-generated data transfer, e.g. clipboards, dynamic data exchange [DDE], object linking and embedding [OLE]

Abstract

Data from multiple source applications may be coped and stored in a buffer as data items. A user may iterate through the data items stored in the buffer after the source applications have been closed. The user may select one or more of the data items in the buffer and copy the selected one or more data items into a target application.

Claims

1. A computer-implemented method comprising:

receiving, by an operating system of a computer system, a plurality of copy commands issued by a user of the computer system at various time intervals to copy corresponding data items, the data items originating from a plurality of source applications executing in the computer system;

storing, by the operating system, the data items in a buffer, the data items remaining in the buffer after the plurality of source applications are no longer executing;

receiving one or more iterate commands;

iterating through the data items and presenting a preview of one of the data items iterated through, in response to the one or more iterate commands;

receiving, by the operating system, a paste command issued by the user and an indication of the one of the data items in the buffer; and

pasting, by the operating system, the indicated data item into a target application executing in an active window.

2. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein receiving the paste command comprises:

receiving a user selection of the one of the data items.

3. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

removing, without user interaction, at least one data item from the buffer when the buffer is full.

4. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, wherein each data item comprises one or more of text, an image, and multimedia data.

5. The computer-implemented method of claim 2, wherein the at least one data item removed from the buffer comprises a least recently accessed data item.

6. The computer-implemented method of claim 1, further comprising:

removing one or more data items from the buffer based on a user input or when a number of data items in the buffer exceeds a threshold.

7. The computer implemented method of claim 1, wherein the paste command further indicates a second one of the data items, and wherein the second one of the data items is also pasted into the application executing in the active window.

8. An apparatus comprising:

a memory to store a plurality of data items;

a processor operatively coupled to the memory; and

a copy/paste tool, integrated with an operating system and executable by the processor to;

receive a plurality of copy commands issued by a user of a computer system at various time intervals to copy corresponding data items, the data items originating from a plurality of source applications executing in the computing system;

store the data items in a buffer, the data items remaining in the buffer after the plurality of source applications are no longer executing;

receive one or more iterate commands;

iterate through the data items and present a preview of one of the data items iterated through, in response to the one or more iterate commands;

receive a paste command issued by the user and an indication of the one of the data items in the buffer; and

paste the indicated data item into a target application executing in an active window.

9. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein receiving the paste command comprises:

receiving a user selection of the one of the data items.

10. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the copy/paste tool is further executable by the processor to:

remove, without user interaction, at least one data item from the buffer when the buffer is full.

11. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein each data item comprises one or more of text, an image, and multimedia data.

12. The apparatus of claim 9, wherein the at least one data item removed from the buffer comprises a least recently accessed data item.

13. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the copy/paste tool is further executable by the processor to:

remove one or more data items from the buffer based on a user input or when a number of data items in the buffer exceeds a threshold.

14. The apparatus of claim 8, wherein the paste command further indicates a second one of the data items, and wherein the second one of the data items is also pasted into the application executing in the active window.

15. A non-transitory machine-readable storage medium including data that, when accessed by a machine, cause the machine to perform a method comprising:

receiving, by an operating system of a computer system, a plurality of copy commands issued by a user of the computer system at various time intervals to copy corresponding data items, the data items originating from a plurality of source applications executing in the computer system;

storing, by the operating system, each data item in a buffer, the data items remaining in the buffer after the plurality of source applications are no longer executing;

receiving one or more iterate commands;

iterating through the data items and presenting a preview of one of the data items iterated through, in response to the one or more iterate commands;

receiving, by the operating system, a paste command issued by the user and an indication of the one of the data items in the buffer; and

pasting, by the operating system, the indicated data item into a target application executing in an active window.

16. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein receiving the paste command comprises:

receiving a user selection of the one of the data items.

17. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the method further comprises:

removing, without user interaction, at least one data item from the buffer when the buffer is full.

18. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 16, wherein the at least one data item removed from the buffer comprises a least recently accessed data item.

19. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, further comprising:

removing one or more data items from the buffer based on a user input or when a number of data items in the buffer exceeds a threshold.

20. The non-transitory machine-readable storage medium of claim 15, wherein the paste command further indicates a second one of the data items, and wherein the second one of the data items is also pasted into the application executing in the active window.