Let's begin by augmenting the GUI to include a row of buttons along the bottom of the main window for copying and pasting:

require 'fox16'
require 'customer'

include Fox

class ClipMainWindow < FXMainWindow
  def initialize(anApp)
    # Initialize base class first
    super(anApp, "Clipboard Example", :opts => DECOR_ALL, :width => 400, :height => 300)

    # Horizontal frame contains buttons
    buttons = FXHorizontalFrame.new(self, LAYOUT_SIDE_BOTTOM|LAYOUT_FILL_X|PACK_UNIFORM_WIDTH)

    # Cut and paste buttons
    copyButton  = FXButton.new(buttons, "Copy")
    pasteButton = FXButton.new(buttons, "Paste")

    # Place the list in a sunken frame
    sunkenFrame = FXVerticalFrame.new(self,
			LAYOUT_FILL_X|LAYOUT_FILL_Y|FRAME_SUNKEN|FRAME_THICK, :padding => 0)
    
    # Customer list
    customerList = FXList.new(sunkenFrame, :opts => LIST_BROWSESELECT|LAYOUT_FILL_X|LAYOUT_FILL_Y)
    $customers.each do |customer|
      customerList.appendItem(customer.name, nil, customer)
    end
  end
  
  def create
    super
    show(PLACEMENT_SCREEN)
  end
end

if __FILE__ == $0
  FXApp.new("ClipboardExample", "FXRuby") do |theApp|
    ClipMainWindow.new(theApp)
    theApp.create
    theApp.run
  end
end

Note that the lines which appear in bold face are those which have been added (or changed) since the previous source code listing.

The clipboard is a kind of shared resource in the operating system. Copying (or cutting) data to the clipboard begins with some window in your application requesting "ownership" of the clipboard by calling the acquireClipboard() instance method. Let's add a handler for the "Copy" button press which does just that:

# User clicks Copy
copyButton.connect(SEL_COMMAND) do
  customer = customerList.getItemData(customerList.currentItem)
  types = [ FXWindow.stringType ]
  if acquireClipboard(types)
    @clippedCustomer = customer
  end
end

The acquireClipboard() method takes as its input an array of drag types. A drag type is just a unique value, assigned by the window system, that identifies a particular kind of data. In this case, we're using one of FOX's pre-registered drag types (stringType) to indicate that we have some string data to place on the clipboard. Later, we'll see how to register customized, application-specific drag types as well.

The acquireClipboard() method returns true on success; since we called acquireClipboard() on the main window, this means that the main window is now the clipboard owner. At this time, we want to save a reference to the currently selected customer in the @clippedCustomer instance variable so that if its value is requested later, we'll be able to return the correct customer's information.