Major Clipboard UI & Behavior Improvements

[mastertrivia]

Clipboard UI & Behavior Improvements

There are three main improvements needed in the current Clipboard implementation.

1. Pinned items currently appear at the top — this makes Recent items difficult to access

Current behavior:
The Clipboard currently displays items in this order:

Pinned → Recent → Others

The problem is that whenever something is pinned, the pinned items occupy the top of the Clipboard. Therefore, if I want to access my recently copied emojis, text, or other temporary clipboard content, I have to scroll past the pinned items every time.

So if three to four items are pinned, then we need to scroll every time....And this is obvious like with the time, the pin item will keep growing.

This becomes increasingly irritating when there are many pinned items, because the user has to repeatedly scroll through the same pinned content just to reach their recent clipboard items.

The behavior in Google Keyboard/desh keyboard/heliboard is more convenient in this regard: pinned content can remain toward the bottom while the frequently changing/recent content stays immediately accessible.

However, I am not suggesting that the application must always force pinned items to the bottom, because this can be a matter of user preference.

A better solution would be to provide an optional setting such as:

Show pinned items at the top

(Heliboard open source application is already doing it.)

This would allow users who prefer the Gboard-style behavior..... while users who prefer pinned items at the top can keep the exiting behavior By enabling that toggle setting.

Please try to keep the default behavior, as every other keyboard is doing, the pinned item always remains at the bottom by default.

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2. Clipboard content font is currently too large + Unnecessary padding.

The copied clipboard items currently appear too large, particularly their text/font size, gap between the lines, and consequently their overall card height.

This causes each clipboard entry to consume more vertical space than necessary, meaning fewer copied items are visible at once.

Please refer to the attached/reference Gboard behavior: the clipboard text is presented at a smaller, more compact scale.

The goal is not to make the text difficult to read, but to reduce unnecessary visual size so that more clipboard entries can fit on screen.

In short:

Make clipboard content more compact, similar to the density of Gboard & Desh Keyboard

This should improve scanning and reduce unnecessary vertical scrolling.

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3. Replace the large PINNED heading with compact navigation

Currently, the Clipboard has a separate heading:

PINNED

This consumes an entire horizontal area even though there is substantial unused horizontal space on that same line.

Instead of using that space only for the PINNED heading, it can be converted into compact navigation.

Initially, I considered:

Recent | Others | Pinned

as shown in the AI-generated reference image.

However, after thinking through the actual behavior, I don't think three separate buttons are necessary.

The preferred design is:

Recent | Pinned ✓✓✓

That's it.

Recent should be the default view when Clipboard opens.

The important distinction is:

Recent = the currently recent/temporary clipboard content.

Further, scrolling on the RECENT will directly show the OTHERS.

As recent items become older, they naturally become part of the normal/older clipboard history ("Others").

Pinned remains permanently separate because pinned content is intentionally preserved.

Therefore, there is no strong reason to give Recent and Others two separate navigation buttons.

The user should simply be able to switch directly between:

Recent | Pinned

This gives immediate access to both important categories without adding unnecessary UI.

Very important: keep this extremely compact

The reference screenshot demonstrates the intended density....

The controls should behave like the small chip ultra compact rectangular boxes

very small height
ultra minimal padding

border/background closely hugging the text

no large pill
no excessive rounded corners
no unnecessary vertical space
all controls remain on the existing line
preserve the existing Clipboard layout

The selected option can have a subtle background/border to communicate selection, while the unselected option remains muted.

For example:

Recent | Pinned

with the selected state visually apparent, but without introducing a large chip/pill that consumes additional space.

The key principle is:

Do not create a new row just for these controls. Reuse the existing space occupied by the PINNED heading.

The main intention here is that we are preserving the vertical space, so these chips like buttons should be ultra compact.

The Clipboard cards should begin essentially where they currently begin, so this change should not increase the vertical height of the Clipboard UI.

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Please watch all the videos attached 🔥🔥🔥

Many extra things Regarding clipboard are compared with other keyboard and discussed.

1️⃣
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1GKE7Rvy2SnYXe_-MyyVH3Q6IXTtLnah5/view?usp=drivesdk

2️⃣
https://drive.google.com/file/d/10CDXkMjqcYiFWHptPvAeDhcEHSTy-EPI/view?usp=drivesdk

3️⃣
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1EmVv8Gx7BFhzC2KZo99dWz5aY-uTBT8N/view?usp=drivesdk

[mastertrivia]

Yes, I want to note one thing.

For example, when if we are providing the tabs like recent and pinned, then the scrolling behavior will never change.

I mean, still I will scroll, and after scrolling, the others will come automatically.

I mean, the tab selection will automatically switch to the others on and as soon as I will again scroll to the above,
& if scrolling down, it will again become the recent.

So even by scrolling, the tabs are appearing changing on the UI, and manual clicking is just doing one thing, that is, it is directly throwing you to that position.

Also, You can give a clear separator horizontal line visually between Pinned, Recent & Others along with headings

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Edit to Point 3 — Dynamic Tab Visibility ✓✓

When a newly copied item is still in Recent, show all three tabs: Recent | Others | Pinned.

Since items in Recent eventually move into Others automatically, once there are no items remaining in Recent, the Recent tab should automatically disappear.

This would make the UI dynamic and cleaner: Recent appears only when there is actually recent content to show, rather than permanently occupying space.

So the navigation could dynamically behave like:

Recent | Others | Pinned → when Recent items exist

Others | Pinned → when Recent becomes empty

This would be better than permanently limiting the navigation to only Recent | Pinned, because the Others category is still useful and already exists naturally in the clipboard system.

[DevEmperor]

Thanks for the detailed report. I've read it and it's on my list — I'll get to it as soon as I can.

[DevEmperor]

Thanks for the detailed write-up. The reference screenshot and the update in your comment made the intent clear. Here's what came out of each point.

1. Pinned items at the bottom

Pinned items now come last by default: Recent → Other → Pinned. What you just copied is at the top again, however many pins you collect.

If you prefer the old order, turn on Settings → Clipboard → Clipboard history → "Pinned items on top".

I also considered putting the pins between Recent and Other. The problem is that "Recent" only covers the last five minutes, so anything older (say, the emoji you copied ten minutes ago) would end up behind all your pins again. That's the exact problem you described, so they go to the bottom. Getting to them is one tap (see point 3). Pinning still does its main job either way: a pinned item is never removed by the history size limit, by the automatic clean-up of old items, or by clearing the history.

2. Smaller clipboard text

The text on the clipboard cards is now 13 sp instead of 14 sp in every built-in theme. I kept the rest of the card as it is: padding, spacing and the line limit are unchanged. The long-press view keeps the full size, since that's where you read a clip in full.

If you use a theme of your own, it keeps whatever it had. You can set it yourself in the theme editor under Clipboard item → Font size.

3. Compact tabs instead of a heading

The "Clipboard" title in the header row is replaced by compact tabs, Recent | Other | Pinned. They sit in the space the title used, so there's no new row and the cards start exactly where they did before.

• Only groups that actually contain something get a tab. The Recent tab appears when you've copied something in the last five minutes and disappears on its own once that's over, even while the clipboard stays open. So it's Recent | Other | Pinned right after copying, and Other | Pinned later, as in your comment.
• The selected tab follows your scrolling: scroll down and it switches to Other, then Pinned. Tapping a tab jumps straight to that group.
• With only one group, there's nothing to switch between, so the title shows instead.
• If the names don't fit next to the buttons (some languages have long ones), the tab row scrolls sideways and keeps the selected tab in view.

The group headings in the list stay as they are. I didn't add extra separator lines, since the headings already mark where each group starts.

Also fixed on the way: "Recent" used to be computed only when something new was copied. A clip could stay under Recent for hours, until you copied the next thing. It now moves to Other exactly five minutes after you copied it.

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All of this is in the next update. I'm closing this since all three points are done. If something feels off once you've tried it, just reopen it.