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XCLIPSYNC(1)		     General Commands Manual		    XCLIPSYNC(1)

NAME
     xclipsync	--  Trivial tool for synchronizing the clipboard between two X11
     sessions

SYNOPSIS
     xclipsync -v
     xclipsync [-O] [-s selection] [-a display] -b display

DESCRIPTION
     xclipsync is a simple and lightweight script for  synchronizing  the  clip-
     board between two X servers created, for example, by Xephyr(1) or Xnest(1),
     or  even  for  synchronizing  the	clipboard between the host and another X
     server.

     When started, xclipsync calls xclip(1) to attempt to synchronize the  clip-
     board  from server A to server B, and continues silently if it fails. After
     this step, the magic begins.

     xclipsync acquires ownership of the clipboard on server A, and when someone
     on server A attempts to paste the clipboard, it sends the data from  server
     B.  If  someone else acquires the clipboard on server A, xclipsync does the
     same thing, but now server B is server A and server A is server B. This  is
     done infinitely unless an error occurs or the process is terminated.

     Unlike a basic loop script that retrieves the clipboard from one server and
     simply  sends  the modified clipboard to another server, xclipsync acquires
     ownership, so we paste on one server when it is truly necessary.	Further-
     more,  there is no need to specify a delay between synchronizations.  It is
     performed instantly and more intelligently.

     xclipsync is also smart when it comes  to	automatically  selecting  the  X
     clipboard	target,  as  it supports images, plain text, rich text, and even
     binaries.	xclipsync attempts to guess the destination and selects by pref-
     erence and in order: image/png, UTF8_STRING,  TEXT,  STRING,  text/plain  ,
     text/html.  If  these guesses fail, xclipsync tries the first matching type
     by preference and in order: image, text. And if these guesses  fail  again,
     the  last	target returned by the X server is selected. And if, again, this
     does not work, the clipboard will be empty on the destination server.  How-
     ever, see the -O flag below for a well-known limitation of Tcl/Tk.

     -O   Although  this tool does its best to guess the format and succeeds 99%
	  of the time, the Tcl/Tk selection handle command has no way of inform-
	  ing the requester the target, so it will  always  paste  the	data  as
	  text.   xclip(1) does not have this limitation, but it is necessary to
	  first detect the target on both sides, both at the input  and  at  the
	  output.  This  shouldnat  be	a  major  issue, since in most cases all
	  that's really needed is text.

	  When this flag is set, the clipboard is synchronized from server A  to
	  server  B  and  closed immediately, without ignoring stderr as happens
	  when this option isn't set.

     -v   Display version information about xclipsync.

     -s selection
	  X clipboard selection.

	  CLIPBOARD, PRIMARY, and SECONDARY are the only valid options.

     -a display
	  Server A.

	  If not specified, the DISPLAY environment variable is used, and if  it
	  is not defined, :0 is used.

     -b display
	  Server B.

EXIT STATUS
     The xclipsync utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.

SEE ALSO
     xclip(1) Xserver(1)

AUTHORS
     JesAos Daniel Colmenares Oviedo <DtxdF@disroot.org>

FreeBSD ports 15.quarterly	  April 9, 2026 		    XCLIPSYNC(1)
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