3 Internet Clipboards for Sharing Notes & Code Snippets

Feb. 4th, 2009 By T.J. Mininday

internet clipboardLearning code is based upon lots of studying, lots of patience, but most of all, lots of collaboration. Message boards, development groups and sharing amongst fellow programmers is one of the most effective and most popular ways of consuming more code.

Getting this code spread to and from the rest of your peers is where it can become difficult. Sending through popular communication methods such as e-mail or instant messaging can lead to missing code, and doesn’t recognize proper syntax of all the various code types. Fortunately these days, there seems to be a solution for everything, and programming of course is no different.

I have put together three different internet based ‘clipboards’, that allow for easy sharing for not only programmers, but for those just looking for a quick text snippet to share with your friends and family.

TextSnip

TextSnip is very similar to URL shortening services, such as TinyUrl, in that it allows you to paste your desired text into the format of your choice and then creates a permanent link to that text. It can then be accessed by anyone of your choosing.

It supports a wide variety of coding formats, including formatting style to text, html, css, xml, javascript, php, sql, ruby, python and more. Along with automatic URL generation, it does have ‘custom snips’ as well, which allow for user customization of the URL.

One of the nicer things about TextSnip is that it does not require any type of registration, but with a registered account you can access your stored ’snips’.

online clipboard

Cl1p

Cl1p is another non-registration required web based clipboard and only requires your own input to create a link. You simply add your own ending to Cl1p.net, such as http://cl1p.net/makeuseof and you then have free reign on your own personal clipboard.

Of course someone else can make that URL as well and that’s where registering your own account may be necessary. This will allow you to share private clipboards to those whom you’d like.

Cl1p may also be used as a storage facility as well. For files up to 30MB in size.

share code snippet

Paste Bin

Pastebin works just a little differently than the previously mentioned products, in that after entering your desired name and expiration for your text, everything is stored according to username in list format.

You can have multiple pasted clipboards with set expiration that users can copy and paste themselves, print, or download in a text format. The URL is automatically generated as well, but it is based upon the entered name.

Once again, the internet doesn’t disappoint. Using methods such as what I’ve described above is much quicker and much easier then many of the notebook tools out there as well. Proper formatting is big in programming and having an easy way to share it can be a big help. Try each of them out and see how you like them.

Give us your feedback along with some other options that might help out as well. Are you aware of any better internet clipboard to share share code snippets or other text online?

(By)

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5 Comments Add Comment
2009-02-04 17:52:33

left out the best of the bunch http://pastie.org

2009-02-04 19:03:55

Wow, you’re right. It looks like a great option as well. Thanks Jamie

2009-02-05 10:41:22

Yeah. http://pastie.org is my favorite. For code snippets anyway.

2009-02-04 17:54:30
Andrew

I used CodePaste (http://paste.bradleygill.com) when I used to program in Java. It supports like 6 languages, doesn’t require registration, and once you paste your code you can latter send the link to your mail.

2009-02-04 18:24:45

Pastebin is my personal favorite. These services come in extremely handy on those occasions where you just have to share some code.

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