clipboard idea

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mr virtual
Posts: 1
Joined: 14. Mar 2020, 08:02

clipboard idea

Post by mr virtual »

consider:

copying text from a vm display window is hard. you have to enable clipboard in settings of the host, you have to have the guest use a compatible clipboard system that works with virtualbox, or install software on the guest that talks to the host, which is a security weakpoint.

solution to complexity:
in virtualbox manager, add a feature that allows the user to highlight a section of the vm display window and then use optical character recognition to copy the text in the selection to the clipboard of the host.

pros:
easier copy pasting, no need to potentially leak data from the vm clipboard

cons:
OCR library is large, will probably increase virtualbox's install size. perhaps when implementing this as a feature (if you think the feature is worth implementing), it should be an optional install component.

Hope you like my idea.
Pernat1y
Posts: 30
Joined: 11. Jun 2018, 11:43
Primary OS: Linux other
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Windows 10, Kali, Fedora/RHEL

Re: clipboard idea

Post by Pernat1y »

https://www.virtualbox.org/ticket/19384

I almost sure that they will not implement OCR thing.
Hosts: Arch Linux, Windows 10;
Guests: Windows 10, Kali, Fedora/RHEL.
mpack
Site Moderator
Posts: 39156
Joined: 4. Sep 2008, 17:09
Primary OS: MS Windows 10
VBox Version: PUEL
Guest OSses: Mostly XP

Re: clipboard idea

Post by mpack »

How would that even help? After OCR (on the host) you would then have text (on the host), and the problem of getting that text into the guest is completely unaffected by the proposal. All you added was an additional complication: multi-platform/multi-language OCR.
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