Clipboard event C#

Question

Is there a clipboard changed or updated event that i can access through C#?

Answer 1

I believe one of the earlier solutions doesn't check for a null on the dispose method:

using System;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using System.Drawing;

namespace ClipboardAssist {

// Must inherit Control, not Component, in order to have Handle
[DefaultEvent("ClipboardChanged")]
public partial class ClipboardMonitor : Control 
{
    IntPtr nextClipboardViewer;

    public ClipboardMonitor()
    {
        this.BackColor = Color.Red;
        this.Visible = false;

        nextClipboardViewer = (IntPtr)SetClipboardViewer((int)this.Handle);
    }

    /// <summary>
    /// Clipboard contents changed.
    /// </summary>
    public event EventHandler<ClipboardChangedEventArgs> ClipboardChanged;

    protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        if(nextClipboardViewer != null)
            ChangeClipboardChain(this.Handle, nextClipboardViewer);
    }

    [DllImport("User32.dll")]
    protected static extern int SetClipboardViewer(int hWndNewViewer);

    [DllImport("User32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern bool ChangeClipboardChain(IntPtr hWndRemove, IntPtr hWndNewNext);

    [DllImport("user32.dll", CharSet = CharSet.Auto)]
    public static extern int SendMessage(IntPtr hwnd, int wMsg, IntPtr wParam, IntPtr lParam);

    protected override void WndProc(ref System.Windows.Forms.Message m)
    {
        // defined in winuser.h
        const int WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD = 0x308;
        const int WM_CHANGECBCHAIN = 0x030D;

        switch (m.Msg)
        {
            case WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD:
                OnClipboardChanged();
                SendMessage(nextClipboardViewer, m.Msg, m.WParam, m.LParam);
                break;

            case WM_CHANGECBCHAIN:
                if (m.WParam == nextClipboardViewer)
                    nextClipboardViewer = m.LParam;
                else
                    SendMessage(nextClipboardViewer, m.Msg, m.WParam, m.LParam);
                break;

            default:
                base.WndProc(ref m);
                break;
        }
    }

    void OnClipboardChanged()
    {
        try
        {
            IDataObject iData = Clipboard.GetDataObject();
            if (ClipboardChanged != null)
            {
                ClipboardChanged(this, new ClipboardChangedEventArgs(iData));
            }

        }
        catch (Exception e)
        {
            // Swallow or pop-up, not sure
            // Trace.Write(e.ToString());
            MessageBox.Show(e.ToString());
        }
    }
}

    public class ClipboardChangedEventArgs : EventArgs
    {
        public readonly IDataObject DataObject;

        public ClipboardChangedEventArgs(IDataObject dataObject)
        {
            DataObject = dataObject;
        }
    }
}

Answer 2

Ok so this is an old post but we found a solution that seems very simple compared to the current set of answers. We are using WPF and we wanted to have our own custom Commands (in a ContextMenu) enable and disable if the Clipboard contains text. There is already an ApplicationCommands.Cut, Copy and Paste and these commands respond correctly to the clipboard changing. So we just added the following EventHandler.

ApplicationCommands.Paste.CanExecuteChanged += new EventHandler(Paste_CanExecuteChanged);

private void Paste_CanExecuteChanged(object sender, EventArgs e) {
  ourVariable= Clipboard.ContainsText();
}

We actually are controlling the CanExecute on our own Command this way. Works for what we needed and maybe it will help others out there.