I want to copy a string to the clipboard (not a region of any particular buffer, just a plain string). It would be nice if it were also added to the kill-ring. Here's an example:
(copy-to-clipboard "Hello World")
Does this function exist? If so, what is it called and how did you find it? Is there also a paste-from-clipboard function?
I can't seem to find this stuff in the Lisp Reference Manual, so please tell me how you found it.
You're looking for kill-new.
kill-new is a compiled Lisp function in `simple.el'.
(kill-new string &optional replace yank-handler)
Make string the latest kill in the kill ring.
Set `kill-ring-yank-pointer' to point to it.
If `interprogram-cut-function' is non-nil, apply it to string.
Optional second argument replace non-nil means that string will replace
the front of the kill ring, rather than being added to the list.
Optional third arguments yank-handler controls how the string is later
inserted into a buffer; see `insert-for-yank' for details.
When a yank handler is specified, string must be non-empty (the yank
handler, if non-nil, is stored as a `yank-handler' text property on string).
When the yank handler has a non-nil PARAM element, the original string
argument is not used by `insert-for-yank'. However, since Lisp code
may access and use elements from the kill ring directly, the string
argument should still be a "useful" string for such uses.
I do this:
(with-temp-buffer
(insert "Hello World")
(clipboard-kill-region (point-min) (point-max)))
That gets it on the clipboard. If you want it on the kill-ring add a kill-region form also.
The command to put your selection on the window system clipboard is x-select-text. You can give it a block of text to remember. So a (buffer-substring (point) (mark)) or something should give you what you need to pass to it. In Joe's answer, you can see the interprogram-cut-function. Look that up for how to find this.