How does Trello access the user's clipboard?

Disclosure: I wrote the code that Trello uses; the code below is the actual source code Trello uses to accomplish the clipboard trick.

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We don't actually "access the user's clipboard", instead we help the user out a bit by selecting something useful when they press Ctrl+C.

Sounds like you've figured it out; we take advantage of the fact that when you want to hit Ctrl+C, you have to hit the Ctrl key first. When the Ctrl key is pressed, we pop in a textarea that contains the text we want to end up on the clipboard, and select all the text in it, so the selection is all set when the C key is hit. (Then we hide the textarea when the Ctrl key comes up.)

Specifically, Trello does this:

TrelloClipboard = new class
  constructor: ->
    @value = ""

    $(document).keydown (e) =>
      # Only do this if there's something to be put on the clipboard, and it
      # looks like they're starting a copy shortcut
      if !@value || !(e.ctrlKey || e.metaKey)
        return

      if $(e.target).is("input:visible,textarea:visible")
        return

      # Abort if it looks like they've selected some text (maybe they're trying
      # to copy out a bit of the description or something)
      if window.getSelection?()?.toString()
        return

      if document.selection?.createRange().text
        return

      _.defer =>
        $clipboardContainer = $("#clipboard-container")
        $clipboardContainer.empty().show()
        $("<textarea id='clipboard'></textarea>")
        .val(@value)
        .appendTo($clipboardContainer)
        .focus()
        .select()

    $(document).keyup (e) ->
      if $(e.target).is("#clipboard")
        $("#clipboard-container").empty().hide()

  set: (@value) ->

In the DOM we've got:

<div id="clipboard-container"><textarea id="clipboard"></textarea></div>

CSS for the clipboard stuff:

#clipboard-container {
  position: fixed;
  left: 0px;
  top: 0px;
  width: 0px;
  height: 0px;
  z-index: 100;
  display: none;
  opacity: 0;
}
#clipboard {
  width: 1px;
  height: 1px;
  padding: 0px;
}

... and the CSS makes it so you can't actually see the textarea when it pops in ... but it's "visible" enough to copy from.

When you hover over a card, it calls

TrelloClipboard.set(cardUrl)

... so then the clipboard helper knows what to select when the Ctrl key is pressed.

I actually built a Chrome extension that does exactly this, and for all web pages. The source code is on GitHub.

I find three bugs with Trello's approach, which I know because I've faced them myself :)

The copy doesn't work in these scenarios:

1. If you already have Ctrl pressed and then hover a link and hit C, the copy doesn't work.
2. If your cursor is in some other text field in the page, the copy doesn't work.
3. If your cursor is in the address bar, the copy doesn't work.

I solved #1 by always having a hidden span, rather than creating one when user hits Ctrl/Cmd.

I solved #2 by temporarily clearing the zero-length selection, saving the caret position, doing the copy and restoring the caret position.

I haven't found a fix for #3 yet :) (For information, check the open issue in my GitHub project).

With the help of raincoat's code on GitHub, I managed to get a running version accessing the clipboard with plain JavaScript.

function TrelloClipboard() {
    var me = this;

    var utils = {
        nodeName: function (node, name) {
            return !!(node.nodeName.toLowerCase() === name)
        }
    }
    var textareaId = 'simulate-trello-clipboard',
        containerId = textareaId + '-container',
        container, textarea

    var createTextarea = function () {
        container = document.querySelector('#' + containerId)
        if (!container) {
            container = document.createElement('div')
            container.id = containerId
            container.setAttribute('style', [, 'position: fixed;', 'left: 0px;', 'top: 0px;', 'width: 0px;', 'height: 0px;', 'z-index: 100;', 'opacity: 0;'].join(''))
            document.body.appendChild(container)
        }
        container.style.display = 'block'
        textarea = document.createElement('textarea')
        textarea.setAttribute('style', [, 'width: 1px;', 'height: 1px;', 'padding: 0px;'].join(''))
        textarea.id = textareaId
        container.innerHTML = ''
        container.appendChild(textarea)

        textarea.appendChild(document.createTextNode(me.value))
        textarea.focus()
        textarea.select()
    }

    var keyDownMonitor = function (e) {
        var code = e.keyCode || e.which;
        if (!(e.ctrlKey || e.metaKey)) {
            return
        }
        var target = e.target
        if (utils.nodeName(target, 'textarea') || utils.nodeName(target, 'input')) {
            return
        }
        if (window.getSelection && window.getSelection() && window.getSelection().toString()) {
            return
        }
        if (document.selection && document.selection.createRange().text) {
            return
        }
        setTimeout(createTextarea, 0)
    }

    var keyUpMonitor = function (e) {
        var code = e.keyCode || e.which;
        if (e.target.id !== textareaId || code !== 67) {
            return
        }
        container.style.display = 'none'
    }

    document.addEventListener('keydown', keyDownMonitor)
    document.addEventListener('keyup', keyUpMonitor)
}

TrelloClipboard.prototype.setValue = function (value) {
    this.value = value;
}

var clip = new TrelloClipboard();
clip.setValue("test");

See a working example: http://jsfiddle.net/AGEf7/