The copy/paste workflow
One rule: selection and commit are the same gesture. The release is the confirmation, so there is no Enter.
Gestures
Hold ⌘⇧ and…
| Vrelease | paste the newest clip |
| V×Nrelease | paste the Nth, wrapping at the end |
| ⌥V | walk backwards |
| 1–9 | jump straight to that clip |
| Space | mark it and advance — mark several to paste several |
| ⌥release | queue them: each later ⌘V pastes the next |
| ⌫ | cancel, paste nothing |
| hold 350ms | the searchable palette opens and takes focus |
Why
The constraint that shapes everything
The heads-up display never takes focus. Every key used during a cycle is a registered global shortcut, which the operating system consumes — so nothing reaches the app underneath, and the app you were in stays frontmost and able to receive the paste.
If the display took focus in order to read its own keys, the paste would have nowhere to go. That single constraint explains the rest of the design: why it is a readout rather than a control, why modifier release is polled, and why mouse selection during a cycle is not offered.
Keystroke comparison
- Paste the newest clip: 1 (was 2)
- Paste the second: 2 (was 3)
- Paste the fifth: 1 (was 6)
- Paste three clips joined: 4 (was 8)
Space marks and advances, so three consecutive marks are three presses rather than five. Marks keep the order you made them in, not list order.
Overrides
Every binding is yours
Settings → Shortcuts, or directly in ~/Library/Application Support/ai.dfacto.yankd/settings.json:
"keymap": {
"cycle": "CommandOrControl+Shift+V",
"cycle_back": "CommandOrControl+Shift+Alt+V",
"mark": "CommandOrControl+Shift+Space",
"cancel": "CommandOrControl+Shift+Backspace",
"search": "CommandOrControl+Shift+F",
"copy_selection": "CommandOrControl+Shift+C",
"index_prefix": "CommandOrControl+Shift"
},
"paste_on_release": true,
"restore_clipboard_after_paste": true,
"multi_paste_delimiter": "\n",
"hold_to_search_ms": 350A binding another app already owns is reported at startup and skipped — one unavailable accelerator never leaves you with none working.
The copy side
⌘⇧C captures the current selection withouttouching the clipboard — X11's primary selection, on macOS. And pasting restores your clipboard afterwards, so reaching into history never costs you what you had copied.