clipboard

Honest Bunmaska API reference for the clipboard module: async reads, sync writes, text/HTML/image only, with a clear list of unimplemented Electron members.

Perform copy and paste operations on the system clipboard. In Bunmaska the clipboard module is a process-wide singleton (not tied to any window) available in both the main and renderer processes, backed by Cocoa (NSPasteboard) on macOS and GTK 4 / GDK on Linux.

One deliberate difference from Electron: all read methods are asynchronous and return a Promise. GDK 4’s clipboard read is async-only, so Bunmaska adopts the same async contract on macOS for a uniform cross-platform API. Writes (and clear) stay synchronous everywhere. On platforms without a backend, methods throw UnsupportedPlatformError rather than silently doing nothing.

Methods

clipboard.readText()

readText(): Promise<string>

Reads the clipboard’s plain-text contents, resolving to '' if the clipboard holds no text. Asynchronous on both platforms (unlike Electron, which returns a string synchronously).

import { clipboard } from 'bunmaska';

clipboard.writeText('hello i am a bit of text!');

const text = await clipboard.readText();
console.log(text);
// hello i am a bit of text!

clipboard.writeText(text)

writeText(text: string): void

Replaces the clipboard’s contents with text as plain text. Synchronous.

import { clipboard } from 'bunmaska';

clipboard.writeText('hello i am a bit of text!');

clipboard.readHTML()

readHTML(): Promise<string>

Reads the clipboard’s HTML markup, resolving to '' if the clipboard holds no HTML. Asynchronous on both platforms.

import { clipboard } from 'bunmaska';

clipboard.writeHTML('<b>Hi</b>');

const html = await clipboard.readHTML();
console.log(html);
// <b>Hi</b>

clipboard.writeHTML(markup)

writeHTML(markup: string): void

Replaces the clipboard’s contents with markup as HTML. Synchronous.

import { clipboard } from 'bunmaska';

clipboard.writeHTML('<b>Hi</b>');

clipboard.readImage()

readImage(): Promise<NativeImage>

Reads the image on the clipboard, resolving to a NativeImage. If the clipboard holds no image, resolves to an empty NativeImage (nativeImage.createEmpty()). Asynchronous on both platforms.

import { clipboard } from 'bunmaska';

const image = await clipboard.readImage();
if (!image.isEmpty()) {
  console.log(image.getSize());
}

clipboard.writeImage(image)

writeImage(image: NativeImage): void

Writes image to the clipboard. The image is encoded as PNG before being placed on the pasteboard (Bunmaska calls image.toPNG() internally). Synchronous.

import { clipboard, nativeImage } from 'bunmaska';

const image = nativeImage.createFromPath('/path/to/icon.png');
clipboard.writeImage(image);

clipboard.availableFormats()

availableFormats(): string[]

Returns the format names (MIME types) currently advertised by the clipboard. Synchronous.

import { clipboard } from 'bunmaska';

clipboard.writeText('test');
console.log(clipboard.availableFormats());
// [ 'text/plain', ... ]

Note: Bunmaska reports MIME-style format names (e.g. text/plain, text/html, image/png) on both platforms, matching Electron’s Linux output rather than the macOS public.* UTI naming.

clipboard.clear()

clear(): void

Clears the clipboard contents. Synchronous, and unlike Electron takes no type argument (see below).

import { clipboard } from 'bunmaska';

clipboard.clear();

Not in Bunmaska (yet)

Comparing against Electron’s clipboard, the following members are not implemented:

• The Linux selection clipboard / type parameter - no method accepts Electron’s optional type (‘clipboard’ | ‘selection’) argument. Bunmaska only touches the standard system clipboard; the Linux PRIMARY selection is not exposed.
• readRTF / writeRTF - no rich-text format support.
• readBookmark / writeBookmark - no bookmark (title + URL) pasteboard support (macOS/Windows in Electron).
• readFindText / writeFindText - no macOS find-pasteboard support.
• has(format) - no per-format availability check; use availableFormats() and test membership yourself.
• read(format) / readBuffer(format) / writeBuffer(format, buffer) - no arbitrary-format raw read/write. Bunmaska handles only text, HTML, and PNG images through the typed methods above.
• write(data) - no single combined write of { text, html, image, rtf, bookmark } in one call; write each format with its dedicated method.
• Synchronous reads - intentionally not offered. readText, readHTML, and readImage are Promise-returning on both platforms (the Linux backend is fundamentally async); there is no sync variant. Plan to await.