Boilerplate 1.0
Instruction Manual
Field Precision LLC
PO Box 13595, Albuquerque, NM 87192 U.S.A.
Telephone: +1-505-220-3975
E mail: [email protected]
Internet: http://www.fieldp.com
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Figure 1: Boilerplate interface.
Many of the operations we carry out with a Windows computer involve the clipboard.
Although useful, the clipboard is rather inflexible – it handles only one item at a time. The
Boilerplate program expands clipboard functions in two ways:
• You can build a library of standard text selections (i.e., boilerplate) that can be transferred
to the clipboard with a single button press – ready to paste into a document.
• You can recall items previously on the clipboard.
Although its functions are simple, Boilerplate can save you time each work day. Figure 1
shows the main Boilerplate window. You can define up to five categories of text selections,
represented by the colored buttons at the top. Each row in a category includes a button on
the left to retrieve the text, an identifying title and text itself. A text selection may have any
length and may include multiple lines. Basic operation is simple. When you have a useful
text selection in the clipboard, go to the appropriate category in Boilerplate and press Add
item. Right-click in the Title column to edit the description. To copy the selection back to
the clipboard, press the corresponding button in the Grab column.
Categories
You can divide text selections into five categories. Use the colored buttons at the top to switch
between categories. To give a category a name, right-click on the button. The button marked
LIVE corresponds to a special category – a running record of text entries copied to the clipboard.
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Adding a text item
To record the current text content of the clipboard, go to the appropriate category and press
the Add item button or press Ctrl-V. A new entry with a default title is added at the bottom.
Right-click in the Title column to edit the name. There are two items of note:
• There is no action if the clipboard contains non-textual information (e.g., images, binary
data,...).
• Although the program stores full multi-line selections, the Text sample column shows
only the first line.
Use the Sort items button the alphabetize entries in the category by their titles.
Recall an item to the clipboard
To copy the full text selection to the clipboard, click the corresponding button in the Grab
column.
Remove entries
To remove entries, make a selection and then push the Delete rows button. To select one item,
left-click in the Titles column. Hold down the Control key to add more items. To select a
block, left click at the top/bottom, hold down the Shift key and left-click the bottom/top.
Edit an entry
To replace the text of an item, be sure that the new text is on the clipboard and then rightclick in the Text sample column. If you make a mistake, immediate type Ctrl-U to restore
the previous item.
Live category
The Live category automatically records the text contents of the clipboard every time it changes.
Boilerplate responds to changes, even if they are made in another program. The Live category
provides a running record of past clipboard items that can be retrieved by pressing buttons in
the Grab column. Figure 2 shows the display. The Clear all button deletes all entries in the
category. The green button to the right toggles active recording. Press it to freeze the state of
the live entries. The button color is red when the live mode is turned off.
Number of active items
By default, Boilerplate saves 20 items in the live mode and then scrolls, adding new items and
deleting the oldest ones. To change the maximum item number, right-click anywhere outside
the item listbox to bring up the popup menu. Choose Program settings and then type in
the desired number. Note that this number, all text and title entries and the window size and
position are saved and restored the next time you run Boilerplate.
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Figure 2: Boilerplate display in the Live category.
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