New In ClipTools: SmartClips Replace, Calc and Title Functions

The free clipboard manager and text utility from MacMost has a few new powerful tricks available in version 1.2 including the ability to replace text in the selection, perform calculations in Smart Clips and add titles to those Smart Clips too.

Video Transcript: Hi, this is Gary with MacMost.com. Let's take a look at some of the new features in Clip Tools 1.2.
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Now for those of you who haven't heard of Clip Tools before it's my free Clipboard Manager App that's available in The App Store. It has all the basic Clipboard Manager functions including saving a history of your Clipboard. In addition there is something in it called Smart Clips. In the new version of 1.2 there are several new features to Smart Clips. 
The first function we're going to look at is the Replace Function. So the idea here is maybe you want to replace some words in text that is selected with something else. I've got two names here. Let's say we want to replace every instance of Mark with Joe. So you can create a Smart Clip for that. I'm going to go  into Clip Tools here, Smart Clips and add a new Smart Clip and then here is what I'm going to use. The way the Replace Function works is you start  off like this: replace colon and then you have the thing you're going to replace and what you're going to replace it with the separator in-between.That's the little pipe symbol on the keyboard. If you add another pipe symbol and then an i after it it makes it case insensitive. So it would replace capital mark or lower case mark. Either one. I'm not going to use that here. 
Now you might think in most Smart Clips there is no reason to ever use Replace. If I've got the word Mark in a Smart Clip, just change Mark to Joe and use the Smart Clip from that point on. But, you can have functions like Selection that takes the currently selected text and then you can perform a  Replace on that. This will replace every instance of Mark with Joe. I can have multiple replaces as well. So let's add to this one and then I'm going to select this text and I'm going to use the Smart Clip. You can see Mark was replaced with Joe in two places.
So you can use it for all sorts of things like that. Here's another example. Let's say in this case you've got product numbers that are done like this. What you really want is to change them to something like this and see how the parentheses are added around it. So what we're going to do is we're going to create a Smart Clip to take care of that. Go to Smart Clips, Add New.  Then we'll start with the selection. We want to put parentheses around the results here. So I'm going to add a left parenthesis and a right parenthesis around this. Then I'm going to do a Replace. Then I'm going to replace the number or pound or hash symbol with product number with a space after it like that. That will replace this with product number with a space and it will surround the results with parentheses there. So I'll add this.Now when I select this here and use this Smart Clip you can see it does what I want. 
So the next new function I want to show you is the Calc Function. Now, of course, in Smart Clips you can already do calculations by choosing Paste Calculations, say, and then typing something like 6 times 9 and you get the result like that. You can get pretty complex on those calculations. You can also calculate selections. So you can do something like 6 times 9 minus 3, select that and Calculate Selection and it replaces the selection with the result. 
But now you can do calculations as part of Smart Clips as well. So, for instance, I can go in here to Smart Clips, Add New. Let's say we want to be able to tell people in a message how many boxes their order will ship in. It's six items per box. So we want to have a Smart Clip that automatically does this for us. So you can say: Your order will ship in...... Now you don't know how many boxes it takes. It's a calculation. So we're going to do a Calc Function here. Then after the colon we put the calculation. Now if we were just going to do something like 6 times 9 there's really no point to that because we could just do the calculation now and then put 54 in there. But, you can put other functions inside this. The Calc Function will operate after those. So I can use the Ask Function and ask how many items, question mark. Now we prompted for that. Then I'm going to put that as part of the calculation but am going to divide it by 6. Now if I divide it by six and it's an odd number like 9 I'm going to get 1.5 and your order is not going to ship in 1.5 boxes. It is going to ship in two boxes. So what I'm going to do in this calculation is I'm going to put parentheses around this with the Ceil function, Ceiling. So it is going to round upwards. Now it should ask how many items, divide that by 6, round upwards with the Ceiling Function, and I'll finish off the with the Calc Function there and I'll then put a space  boxes period. I'm going to Add that as a Smart Clip. So now if I run that Smart Clip, like this, it is going to prompt me. How many items? Let's say it is going to be 15 items. Okay, your order will ship in three boxes. It does the calculation. 
So you can have multiple calculations, of course, inside this. You can also put Selection as part of the calculation as well. You can use other Smart Clip functions in it as well like generating random numbers or choosing a random item. 
Now here's the last new function. It actually doesn't do anything. It just kind of helps you navigate Clip Tools. But it is one of the most requested features by far. That is the ability to add Titles to the Smart Clips. So right now if I look in the Smart Clips menu I see the text of the Smart Clip trying to represent what it is. But if I hold down Option and Command then I can Edit. So, I'm going to Edit this one. I'm going to Add, and I can do it anywhere, Beginning or the End, a Title Function like that. I can give it a title. So I'll do Mark to Joe. Then I'll end that function there. This will be ignored when you actually use the Smart Clip. It will only be used in the Menu. So, now I look at the Menu here. Smart Clips and there it is. That Smart Clip is titled that. I can do the same thing with others. So I can Option and Command, Edit this. I can Add title. I'll just do it at the end here and I'll say, you know, Product Number like that. Now notice that Smart Clips shows the Product Number there. I can still use it the same as before. It just makes it a little nicer to actually look at them in the Menu. 
There are a few other changes that I want to point out. One is if you go now to Settings notice that in addition to being able to do Clear Clipboard Manager Data for Clips and Saved Clips, you can also Clear the Smart Clips and Calculations. The saved calculations every time you do one it saves it in a list so you can go back and like recall a calculation you did earlier.
You could also get to these with a new special Options Menu. So normally when you choose Clip Tools like this it begins up Clip Tools with everything. If you hold the Option Key down before you click the menu, it has to be before, then the Menu comes up differently. You get Clear Clips, Save Clips, Smart Clips, Previous Calculations. This is for quickly clearing them. Note that it does it instantly without a prompt. I plan on in the future maybe clarifying that by saying Clear All Clips, Clear All Saved Clips and all of that. So you can get to those with the new Options Menu and this new Options Mode for Clip Tools may allow me to add some more items here in the future. Maybe access more of the settings or other ways you can alter how Clip Tools works. 
So if you don't have Clip Tools yet give it a look. It's in the Mac App Store completely FREE, No in-app purchases or anything like that. It is supported by all the people that are part of Club MacMost at Patreon. Hope you find it useful. Thanks for watching.

Comments: 8 Responses to “New In ClipTools: SmartClips Replace, Calc and Title Functions”

Bern Shanfield

7 months ago

Nice development!

Thought: I do a lot with file & folder management, like creating a new folder with a predetermined name and today's date (ex. filing meeting notes and videos for regular board meetings) or adding numbers to file names to keep them in sequence where name or date created/modified doesn't work. Currently, I use Keyboard Maestro palettes to handle these 'Finder Services.' Might this be a future option even though they extend beyond direct clipboard manipulations to a degree?

Gary Rosenzweig

Bern: Not sure I'd be able to do that. Remember, Keyboard Maestro is NOT in the App Store because it definitely does way more to control your Mac than an App Store app is allowed. I want to keep ClipTools in the App Store. Plus, of course, KM is a paid app with a development team. I want to keep ClipTools free and something I can maintain by myself.

Ken Nellis

Curious that your number of boxes example works in TextEdit, but not in Notes! In Notes, after it prompts me for the number of items, and I enter it and click OK, it just beeps at me, but it does save the output to the clipboard, so I can then Paste to get the results, but it doesn't require that extra step in TextEdit.

Ken: It works in Notes. Just tried it. Maybe you didn't have the text cursor inside a note? It has to be there just like you are about to type in it or pasting (whether from ClipTools or just a regular paste) won't work.

Daniel

Gary, clip tools is an amazing utility, and it keeps getting better. It's what convinced me to become a patron: it's so good that it made me feel guilty to just use it and not contribute to everything you do. MacMost rocks!

Daniel: Thanks!!!

Gee Lang

5 months ago

Awesome utility, and being able to add a "Title" to smart clips is a great addition. Any chance we might one day be able to give a title to saved clips so we can easily tell those apart as well? I was hoping to save the path to folders I use frequently, but a lot of the path text is truncated. An alternative to naming the saved clips would be an option to increase the width of the menu so more of the path text would be visible. Thanks for all you do!

Gee: If you need a title on a Saved Clip, just do a Smart Clip instead. You don't need to add any special functionality to a Smart Clip, it can just be plain text with a {title} added. Maybe I should add an option to convert a Saved Clip (or any clip) to a Smart Clip, though you can do it now by just copying it and pasting it into a new Smart Clip.

New In ClipTools: SmartClips Replace, Calc and Title Functions

Comments: 8 Responses to “New In ClipTools: SmartClips Replace, Calc and Title Functions”

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