Copy And Paste Using Clipboard In Xamarin.Forms

Introduction

Copy and paste are used to share the data between apps, or within an app, and for almost all the platform-supported clipboard operations. So, in this article, we can learn how to achieve this functionality in Xamarin.Forms using DependencyServices concept.

Requirements

• This article's source code is prepared by using Visual Studio. And it is better to install the latest Visual Studio updates from here.
• This article is prepared on a Mac machine.
• This sample project is Xamarin.Forms PCL project.
• This sample app is targeted for Android, iOS. And, tested for Android & iOS.

Description

Let's start

Step 1

First, follow the below steps to create a new Xamarin.Forms project.

• Open Visual Studio for Mac.
• Click on the File menu, and select New Solution.
• In the left pane of the dialog, let's select the type of templates to display. Multiplatform > App > Xamarin.Forms > Blank Forms App and click on Next.
• Next, enter your app name (Ex: ClipbordDemo). At the bottom select target platforms to Android & iOS and shared code to Portable Class Library and click the Next button.
• Then, choose project location with the help of Browse button and click Create.

Now, the project structure will be created like below. 

• ClipboardDemo
  It is for Shared Code
  
  
• ClipboardDemo.Droid
  It is for Android.
  
  
• ClipboardDemo.iOS
  It is for iOS

Portable Class Library(PCL)

Step 2

Create an interface IClipboardService inside the Interfaces folder and having method declaration of CopyToClipboard.

IClipboardService.cs

namespace ClipboardDemo.Interfaces {
    public interface IClipboardService {
        void CopyToClipboard(string text);
    }
}

Xamarin.Android

Create a class ClipboardService and you need to implement CopyToClipboard method like below.

ClipboardService.cs

using System;
using ClipboardDemo.Interfaces;
using Xamarin.Forms;
using Android.Content;
using ClipboardDemo.Droid.DepencencyServices;

[assembly: Dependency(typeof(ClipboardService))]
namespace ClipboardDemo.Droid.DepencencyServices {
    public class ClipboardService: IClipboardService {
        public void CopyToClipboard(string text) {
            var clipboardManager = (ClipboardManager)Forms.Context.GetSystemService(Context.ClipboardService);
            ClipData clip = ClipData.NewPlainText("Android Clipboard", text);
            clipboardManager.PrimaryClip = clip;
        }
    }
}

Note
ClipData's purpose is a representation of  clipped data on the clipboard. ClipData is a complex type containing one or more Item instances, each of which can hold one or more representations of an item of data. For displaying to the user, it also has a label.

Xamarin.iOS

In iOS also, we create a class ClipboardService and need to implement CopyToClipboard method like below.

ClipboardService.cs

using ClipboardDemo.Interfaces;
using Xamarin.Forms;
using ClipboardDemo.iOS.Services;
using UIkit;
[assembly: Dependency(typeof(ClipboardService))]
namespace ClipboardDemo.iOS.Services {
    public class ClipboardService: IClipboardService {
        public void CopyToClipboard(string text) {
            UIPasteboard clipboard = UIPasteboard.General;
            clipboard.String = text;
        }
    }
}

Note
UIPasteboard is an object that helps a user share data from one place to another within your app, and from your app to other apps.

PCL

Create your own Xaml page named VersionAndBuildNumberPage.xaml.

ClipboardDemoPage.xaml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<ContentPage xmlns="http://xamarin.com/schemas/2014/forms"
xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2009/xaml"
xmlns:local="clr-namespace:ClipboardDemo"
BackgroundColor="White"
x:Class="ClipboardDemo.ClipboardDemoPage">
<StackLayout Padding="40, 60,40,0"
VerticalOptions="FillAndExpand"
HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand">
<Label
Text="Copy and Paste"
FontSize="25"
FontAttributes="Bold"
TextColor="#533F95"
HorizontalOptions="CenterAndExpand" />
<StackLayout
VerticalOptions="CenterAndExpand"
Spacing="40">
<Entry
Placeholder="Enter text"
PlaceholderColor="#533F95"
TextColor="#533F95"
x:Name="ClipboardCopyText"
HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand"
HeightRequest="45"
VerticalOptions="StartAndExpand" />
<Button
Text="Copy To Clipboard"
BackgroundColor="#533F95"
TextColor="White"
HorizontalOptions="FillAndExpand"
HeightRequest="45"
Clicked="Btn_CopyToClipboard_Click" />
</StackLayout>
</StackLayout>
</ContentPage>

Call to DependencyService

Now, let us call the dependency service in the code behind under CopyToClipboard click event for copying the text to clipboard.

var clipboardService = DependencyService.Get<IClipboardService>();
clipboardService?.CopyToClipboard(ClipboardCopyText.Text);

ClipboardDemoPage.xaml.cs

using System;
using ClipboardDemo.Interfaces;
using Xamarin.Forms;
namespace ClipboardDemo {
    public partial class ClipboardDemoPage: ContentPage {
        public ClipboardDemoPage() {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
        private void Btn_CopyToClipboard_Click(object sender, EventArgs e) {
            if (!string.IsNullOrEmpty(ClipboardCopyText.Text)) {
                var clipboardService = DependencyService.Get < IClipboardService > ();
                clipboardService ? .CopyToClipboard(ClipboardCopyText.Text);
                DisplayAlert("ClipboardDemo", "Text copied!", "Ok");
            } else {
                DisplayAlert("ClipboardDemo", "Please enter the text", "Ok");
            }
        }
    }
}

Note
In the above class, we are calling Clipboard Service and passing user entered text in ClipboardCopyText Entry.

Output

                    

 Please download the source code from here.