Cliboard Empty speed?

[terrypin]

I'd appreciate an update on the practical use of the Clipboard commands (Empty and Copy) please.

 

aking Clipboard Empty first, I've been trying this alternative often suggested by Paul:

"Using the Clipboard Empty command turns out to be very much slower than setting T1=, then writing T1 to the clipboard."

Variable Set String %T[1]% to ""
Variable Modify String: Save %T[1]% to the clipboard

It was discussed In this thread amongst others.
http://pgmacros.invisionzone.com/topic/3584-clipboard-with-null-contents/

After testing it again today, it's true, but only if the clipboard delay setting in Preferences is above about 50 ms, when the alternative is about 8 times faster. At a clipboard delay setting below 3 ms on my XP PC, testing 500 iterations, the alternative was slightly slower. I have seen threads in which it's been suggested to use a zero setting, so this is not just an academic question.

 

At the ME Pro default setting of 250 ms, the alternative processed 500 iterations in about 3 s, versus over 2 minutes for the standard command!

But what I'm therefore not clear about now is how to optimise the Clipboard Copy and Clipboard Paste commands. Is there an alternative for those which can be used in all circumstances, which will be at least as fast as the standard commands? And if so, what permanent setting should be used for the clipboard delay setting? (I assume it's not recommended to change it for running individual macros?)

 

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Terry, East Grinstead, UK