[From Discord] Writing tools and text copy/paste shortcuts.

Openterface KVM App
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1

Imported from Discord — originally posted by Evoss on 24 February 2025.
Source: Discord

Hello, looking for some advice please that I cant find answers to in the FAQ.

Host device: MacOS
Target: Windows

Two questions:

  1. On the Openterface application, the writing tools menu is greyed out. Any advice on how to activate this please?

  2. I can copy from host (cmd+c), but to paste I have to manually select paste on the menu bar, it wont let me use cmd+v. Any advice please?

Staff: please reply here. When resolved, consider linking back on Discord to drive users to the forum.

2

Originally posted by Evoss on Discord, 24 February 2025.

@Billiooo

3

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

Pasting emulates typing. If you have any issues you can use AutoHotkey for windows, xdotool on Linux, or an equivalent on macOS if the paste function does not work

4

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

There is no guest OS driver support for clipboard synchronization and there probably never will be. Unless you’re planning to add text recognition technology to “read” the text from the screen or something crazy to the desktop app

5

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

Yeah, that’s basically the deal.

6

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

We can’t actually sync clipboards between the host and the target, so when you copy text on the host, our software is basically just typing it out on the target. Because of that, hitting cmd+v on a Mac host won’t directly paste into the target. I get that this feels kind of clunky and not intuitive. I’ll talk to our dev team about maybe adding a feature or button in the host app that, once you turn it on, could override cmd+v locally and trigger the simulated ‘paste’ text to the target.

7

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

@Kevin Peng @shwan

8

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

We’re currently weighing two approaches below. Which approach do you think would work best?

9

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

  1. Immediately paste the text when you hit cmd+V. The downside here is that if there’s any hiccup with the macOS clipboard, the software might “type” the text incorrectly on the target.
10

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

  1. Introduce a paste text box that lets you preview and style the text before triggering the simulated typing to the target. For example, the PikVM web app uses a similar step before pasting.
11

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

I think an alternative would be to “by default” hook into the cmd+v. Also by default it would “always prompt”. (Can also be disabled or potentially even remapped) Then, it will show a popup dialogue box.
"

Paste (Type) Content?

<the_content_string>
[Cancel/Paste] checkbox:Always Paste
"

12

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

yes, I think it is the way, options.

13

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

Our dev team might joke about how many cups of coffee it takes to build a framework flexible enough for such custom configuration

14

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

Implementation wise, you’d probably have to temporarily cancel forwarding the Ctrl or cmd keys which could cause problems

15

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

and is going to be a mess …

16

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

have fun!

17

Originally posted by Billiooo on Discord, 25 February 2025.

I’m confident they’ll make it work.

18

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

or potentially send a cmd/ctrl “unset” or “key_up” before pasting… That would be the hack I’d use LOL (could cause a ghost key tap of Ctrl/cmd on the target but better than “holding” it down)

19

Originally posted by bradcarnage on Discord, 25 February 2025.

Also, I never use Ctrl+V… I use shift insert!!! Make sure you remember that’s a key combo for paste as well!

20

Originally posted by Kevin Peng on Discord, 25 February 2025.

Question 1, the MacOS version was supposed no “writing tools menu” exposed, why you want to show it? And you can see it from the app?