Get/Set clipboard data from DBus or other background options in UT

tonton_

Hi for a project of mine, i would like to get the clipboard content (and set it) from a background service.

I find the way of doing it on desktop through some dbus viewer, but i don't have this kind of tool on UT.

I'm not familiar with dbus, but i like digging, and i would like to go through with this project of mine

Here is what i do on kde to get/set :
get :

dbus-send --print-reply --type=method_call --dest=org.kde.klipper /klipper org.kde.klipper.klipper.getClipboardContents

set :

dbus-send --type=method_call --dest=org.kde.klipper /klipper org.kde.klipper.klipper.setClipboardContents string:"new_clipboard_example"

On UT if found this method which looks interesting :

destination=com.lomiri.content.dbus.Service serial=7946 path=/; interface=com.lomiri.content.dbus.Service; member=GetLatestPasteData

and is triggered through a copy from the interface, but i didn't find a way to make the dbus call, or find the content, and i'm still looking for a set method...

If anyone here have a clue, i'd be grateful ! thanks !

lduboeuf

@tonton_ said in Get/Set clipboard data from DBus or other background options in UT:

you can introspect the service by doing this:

dbus-send --session --type=method_call --print-reply \ --dest=com.lomiri.content.dbus.Service \ / \ org.freedesktop.DBus.Introspectable.Introspect

there is a method CreatePaste which seems to do the job, but looking at input arguments expected, it seems not easy to use
<method name="CreatePaste">
<arg direction="in" type="s" name="app_id"/>
<arg direction="in" type="s" name="surfaceId"/>
<arg direction="in" type="ay" name="mimeData"/>
<arg direction="in" type="as" name="types"/>
<arg direction="out" type="b" name="success"/>
</method>

lduboeuf

Also dbus-monitor --session when doing a copy/paste from UI reveals the method called

tonton_

Oh yeah, thanks for these infos , i'll take a look after work ! Cheers

tonton_

@lduboeuf
trying to use the introspectable method to build a call

The methods :

<interface name="com.lomiri.content.dbus.Service">
<method name="GetLatestPasteData">
      <arg direction="in" type="s" name="surfaceId"/>
      <arg direction="out" type="ay" name="mimeData"/>
    </method>
    <method name="GetPasteData">
      <arg direction="in" type="s" name="surfaceId"/>
      <arg direction="in" type="s" name="pasteid"/>
      <arg direction="out" type="ay" name="mimeData"/>
    </method>

The call attempt :

phablet@ubuntu-phablet:~$ dbus-send --session --type=method_call --print-reply --dest=com.lomiri.content.dbus.Service / com.lomiri.content.dbus.Service.GetPasteData

Error org.freedesktop.DBus.Error.UnknownMethod: No such method 'GetPasteData' in interface 'com.lomiri.content.dbus.Service' at object path '/' (signature '')

I'm not sure what i'm doing wrong here, giving the method exists (introspectable). I didn't try to give args on purpose, just to try to build correctly the call first

arubislander

@tonton_ I think not providing any arguments is what is triggering the error. In effect it is saying, there does not exist any method with that name that takes no arguments.

tonton_

@arubislander Thank you for the tip, you were right, i "just" have to find the proper way to encode/decode the "array of bytes" output from these dbus calls !

lduboeuf

@tonton_ said in Get/Set clipboard data from DBus or other background options in UT:

@arubislander Thank you for the tip, you were right, i "just" have to find the proper way to encode/decode the "array of bytes" output from these dbus calls !

I'm not sure if it is even doable as apparently it requires a "surface_id" and an "app_id" so this is something done for UI apps i guess

tonton_

@lduboeuf not sure either ^^ but if i can decode the bytes array, i believe i can at least retrieve the clipboard ! one step at a time here !

tonton_

so i get an array of bytes which looks like this :

03 00 00 00 34 00 00 00 0a 00 00 00 3e 00 00 00 09 00 00 00 47 00 00 00

but longer.
It seems to be the clipboard content in mimedata, encoded, but i can't get how to decode it (tested through python or bash for now), sorry if dumb question, i'm getting more familiar with dbus, but not the most skilled around here, that's for sure
Does anyone have some clue about this ? I tried some byte converters to try to identify the encoding, but didn't get through for now...

AppLee

@tonton_

Do you know the content of the clipboard.
What I would do is copy a known string and try to guess if it's encoded and how.

I surmise your device is a 64bit ARM.
If I just try a simple ASCII conversion I get : "<LF>4><TAB>G"
So something like:


4>    G

Is it possible?

tonton_

@AppLee
thanks for the tip, i tried with ascii converter, didn't think of that, it works
I'll have to parse the resulting ascii (lots of escaped character, and html in it )