The UI for this example consists of a field containing some text, a button allowing the user to append the selected text to the clipboard and a label field informing the user how many characters are currently on the clipboard.

You can download the stack associated with this lesson from this url: https://tinyurl.com/y7cx4o8x

This handler is based on the clipboardData property. The clipboardData contains whatever is currently in the clipboard: plain text, styled text, image data, or files, stored in an array whose keys are the data types that the clipboard can hold. The appendSelectionToClipboard handler takes the selected text and adds it to the end of the text on the clipboard, letting you accumulate text, instead of wiping out what was already on the clipboard.

The first thing this handler does is check whether any text is currently selected. If the selectedText function returns empty, either there is no selection, or something other than text is selected. In either case, there's nothing to append to the clipboard, so the handler uses the return control structure to skip the rest of the handler and return an error message. The handler that called the appendSelectionToClipboard command can check the result function to see whether there was an error:

put the selectedText into tText
if tText is empty then
	return "Error: No text"
end if

If there is a text selection, the handler appends it to the end of the clipboard contents. It does this by setting the "text" element of the clipboardData array. The expression the clipboardData["text"] refers to the plain text on the clipboard; the handler sets this property to the current clipboard text and the selected text, separated by a return.

set the clipboardData["text"] to the clipboardData["text"] & return & tText

If you use the appendSelectionToClipboard handler repeatedly, the text accumulates, one entry per line. When you choose Edit -> Paste, all the accumulated text is pasted.

Finally the handler displays the number of characters stored on the clipboard.

put the length of the clipboardData["text"] && "characters in clipboard" into field "clipboard length"

This handler is placed on the script of the "Append Selected Text" button

on mouseUp
	appendToClipboard
	if the result is not empty then
		answer the result
	end if
end mouseUp

This handler is placed on the Card script

on appendSelectionToClipboard
	local tText
   
	put the selectedText into tText
   
	if tText is empty then
		return "Error: No text"
	end if
   
	set the clipboardData["text"] to the clipboardData["text"] & return & tText
	put the length of the clipboardData["text"] && "characters in clipboard" into field "clipboard length"
end appendSelectionToClipboard

To make this example handler more flexible, we might give it a parameter to hold the text to add to the clipboard. Instead of appending the selection, the handler would add whatever text was provided as the parameter, and fall back on the selection only if no text is supplied. Here's what the modified handler looks like:

on appendToClipboard pText
   
	if pText is empty then
		## use the selected text
		put the selectedText into pText
	end if
   
	if pText is empty then
		return "Error: No text"
	end if
   
	set the clipboardData["text"] to the clipboardData["text"] & return & pText
	put the length of the clipboardData["text"] && "characters in clipboard" into field "clipboard length"
end appendToClipboard

You use this modified handler with a statement like one of these:

appendToClipboard "Hello world" ## adds "Hello world"

appendToClipboard field "Name" ## adds the field contents

appendToClipboard ## adds whatever is selected

Another way to modify the original handler is to change other parts of the clipboardData array to allow clipping styled text. Because this handler specifies the clipboardData["text"], it's only capable of handling plain text with no styles. If the clipboard already contains styled text, setting the "text" element of the clipboardData causes the styles to be lost.

However, the clipboardData property also contains styled text. The expression the clipboardData["HTML"] evaluates to the styled text on the clipboard, in the same format as the htmlText property. We can use this element of the clipboardData array to set the clipboard to the selected text, while including any style information:

set the clipboardData["HTML"]  to the clipboardData["HTML"] & "<p></p>" & the htmlText of the selectedChunk

The expression the htmlText of the selectedChunk evaluates to the selected text, along with its style information, in HTML format, so this variation includes the style information that goes with the selected text. The "<p></p>" is the htmlText equivalent of the return used in the original handler.