Convert Keith Hill's PowerShell Get-Clipboard and Set-Clipboard to a PSM1 script

Question

I'd like to convert Keith Hill's C# implementation of Get-Clipboard and Set-Clipboard into pure PowerShell as a .PSM1 file.

Is there a way to spin up an STA thread in PowerShell as he does in his Cmdlet when working with the clipboard?

The Blog Post
The Code

Answer 1

I just blogged how to do this:

http://www.nivot.org/2009/10/14/PowerShell20GettingAndSettingTextToAndFromTheClipboard.aspx

-Oisin

Answer 2

You should check your host first. ISE already runs STA so there is no need to spin up another thread or shell out (which is an optimization that's on my todo list for PSCX). For the console prompt, which is MTA, then I would shell out to binary code either as Oisin shows or use a simple little C# app like:

using System;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Forms;
class OutClipboard {
  [STAThread]
  static void Main() {
    Clipboard.SetText(Console.In.ReadToEnd());
  }
}

And for getting the clipboard contents, Vista and later have clip.exe.

I don't think that even 2.0's advanced functions is ready to let folks party with their own .NET threads in a script.

Answer 3

TextBox doesn't require -STA switch.

function Get-ClipBoard {
    Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
    $tb = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
    $tb.Multiline = $true
    $tb.Paste()
    $tb.Text
}


function Set-ClipBoard($text) {
    Add-Type -AssemblyName System.Windows.Forms
    $tb = New-Object System.Windows.Forms.TextBox
    $tb.Multiline = $true
    $tb.Text = $text
    $tb.SelectAll()
    $tb.Copy()
}