SunForum Shared Clipboard

The Shared Clipboard synchronizes your X system clipboard with the clipboards of other conference participants running SunForum, Microsoft NetMeeting or PictureTel LiveShare Plus.

When your clipboard is shared,

Data which you copy (or cut) is available to other conference participants to paste into their applications

Data copied (or cut) by other conference participants who have also shared their clipboards is available to you to paste into applications running on your system.

	Supported data formats
	X applications compatibility
	Support for shared clipboard in NetMeeting
	Sharing the clipboard
	Automatically sharing the clipboard when in a conference

The clipboard can only be shared when you are in a conference.

Shared Clipboard support in NetMeeting

Microsoft NetMeeting version 2 always shares the clipboard when in a conference; there is no facility for turning off this option. Note that if you are in a conference with other people using NetMeeting 2, they may not be aware that their clipboard is shared.

Microsoft NetMeeting version 3 never shares the clipboard; this feature is not present in NetMeeting 3.

Automatically Sharing the Clipboard

To share the clipboard automatically whenever you are in a conference, select the Options command on the Tools menu, and check the "automatically share clipboard when in a conference" option.

With this option enabled, the shared clipboard is always active when you join a conference. This means that SunForum behaves in the same way as Microsoft NetMeeting version 2.

Supported Formats

Data may be transferred in any of the following formats:

	Text
	Images
	Application-specific formats (such as SunForum whiteboard objects).

Data copied into the X "clipboard selection" is made available to all other systems with shared clipboards in the conference. Typically, this means data copied via the Cut and Copy commands on the Edit menu, or using the Cut and Copy keys.

Some applications also use the X "primary selection" for quick-pasting. For example, in a Terminal you can select text with the mouse and paste directly into another terminal window with a single mouse click. This primary selection is also shared by SunForum, but only to other UNIX systems, since there is no similar concept on Windows. This enables you to copy selected text from a terminal window shared by another system into a locally-running terminal window, as long as both systems have shared clipboard enabled.

To use this feature:

The other person must be running a UNIX-based conferencing product. (The feature is not available on Windows computers because Windows does not have a concept equivalent to the X "primary selection".)
Both you and the other person must have the shared clipboard enabled.

X Application Compatibility

Some applications include cut/copy/paste commands, but do not use the X clipboard mechanism to transfer data (or, in some cases, they use the X clipboard for text but not for images). Such applications will not interoperate with other X applications, including Shared Clipboard. If you experience problems with a particular application, try copying data between that application and another known well-behaved application (such as Terminal, CDE Text Editor or SunForum Whiteboard); if you are unable to transfer data without shared clipboard active, then the application is likely not using the X clipboard correctly.

Shared clipboard will not operate at the same time as the "xclipboard" utility, or any other application which uses a similar mechanism for monitoring changes to the X system clipboard. (For the same reason, xclipboard will not operate properly at the same time as another instance of itself.)

Sharing the Clipboard

The Share Clipboard item on the SunForum Tools menu is checked whenever the clipboard is shared. Selecting this menu item toggles the state of the clipboard.

The clipboard can only be shared when you are in a conference.

	Data which you copy (or cut) is available to other conference participants to paste into their applications
	Data copied (or cut) by other conference participants who have also shared their clipboards is available to you to paste into applications running on your system.