Feature: Built-in copy action for cross-platform clipboard support #4820

Checklist

• I have read through the manual page (man fzf)
• I have searched through the existing issues
• For bug reports, I have checked if the bug is reproducible in the latest version of fzf

Output of fzf --version

0.73.1 (ae78a5c)

OS

• Linux
• macOS
• Windows
• Etc.

Shell

• bash
• zsh
• fish

Problem / Steps to reproduce

Issue: often used snippet, but macOS only; will fail when using same setup on a non-mac

fzf --bind 'enter:execute:echo -n {1} | pbcopy'

Solution: OS-independent way to copy a string to clipboard

fzf --bind 'enter:copy-string:{1}'

a paste action seems redundant, user already has ⌃ ControlV / ⌘ CommandV

one possible use case was accessing the clipboard value, e.g. through a placeholder (not important)

# popup that disappears after 2s; modified example from CHANGELOG.md 0.63.0
echo "https://example.com" | fzf \
  --bind "ctrl-y:copy-string:{}" \
  --bind "ctrl-y:+change-footer:{input_paste}" \
  --bind "ctrl-y:+bg-cancel+bg-transform-footer:sleep 2"

tools with clipboard feature

broot (rust)

• added ~2020 Canop/broot@f73071b3ecf8
• current crate used: https://github.com/Canop/terminal-clipboard

# needs to be built with feature flag (brew formula does not set it)
cargo install broot --features clipboard
# run
~/.cargo/bin/broot
# press 'alt-c' on selected item
# press 'ctrl-v' to paste

television (rust)

handles it without a dedicated crate

• https://github.com/alexpasmantier/television/blob/main/television/utils/clipboard.rs

additional notes

some terminals support OSC 52 (ghostty, VSCode 1.91+, ...)

• https://invisible-island.net/xterm/ctlseqs/ctlseqs.html#h4-Operating-System-Commands:OSC-Ps;Pt-ST:Ps-=-5-2.101B
• https://ucs-detect.readthedocs.io/results.html#osc-52-clipboard-detection

printf "\033]52;c;%s\007" "$(printf "FooBar" | base64)"

related issues

• Copy text from preview #4421
• Its Possible Copy To Clipboard ? #2323
• How do I bind ctrl+Y to copy the current selected path? #2033