“Programmer Short-Cut – “Programs should not transfer data into our out of the clipboard without an explicit instruction from the user.” — Charles Petzold, Programming Windows 3.1, Microsoft Press, 1992
If you use the clipboard to move card faces, toolbar icons, or bits of text within a program, or between programs, without the user performing an explicit cut/copy or paste, then you are using the clipboard as a crutch. Remember – the clipboard is there for the convenience of the user, not the programmer. Do not do this! [...]Any time a program puts data onto the clipboard, without the user’s knowledge or consent, that’s an abuse. And it’s documented on the The n Habits of Highly Defective Windows Applications page. http://www.flounder.com/badprogram.htm#clipboard ”

Quoting Petzold’s “Programming Windows” and Habits of Highly Defective Windows Applications… now THAT’S telling ‘em!! Sir, I would definitely nominate you for President of Worldwide Application Standards.

I wish all software was written with as much concern for the user as you show in these articles!! You hit the nail on the head when you talked about how there is nothing worse than a program that violates the trust of the user and destroys his data or interferes with another program improperly.

“Acknowledgements
Yankee Clipper honors the “Clipboard Viewer Ignore” message first implemented by Thornsoft, per http://www.thornsoft.com/developer.htm. This was done simply because it’s a good idea and they were kind enough to make the standard available. ”

I have been using Yankee Clipper daily for 12 years without updating, no joke, and today I sought an upgrade, and found this in the help file. Thank you for this size innovation and that fact it’s spread to my favorite Clipboard application.
http://www.intelexual.com/products/YC3/

“Developers never seem to learn: don’t try to be too cute with the clipboard.” “Smoke and mirror tricks will always end badly”. “Of course, this is likely due to blind faith in the clipboard notification process. It probably worked great in the lab though!”

This is brilliant, clear yet provocative writing. I must read more of what you have written.

Nothing else I did was working. I had clicked off that stupid checkmark next to Automatically Open Clipboard at least a dozen times. I had clicked off every other checkmark I could find. Every time I went into Excel and copied a couple of times the @#*& Clipboard would open up AGAIN. It looks like you’ve found a way to get the job done. I just wish Microsoft Office would have honored my first attempts to turn off the clipboard. It shouldn’t be that hard.