AddClipboardFormatListener function

Edit: This set of APIs (AddClipboardFormatListener, RemoveClipboardFormatListener, WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE) was probably created after the problems with the previous set of APIs (ChangeClipboardChain, SetClipboardViewer, WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD). The problems were that the previous set of APIs depended on the programs itself to maintain the clipboard chain, just like the old, pre-Win3.1 hook APIs, and thus was fragile. If you kill a process that used the previous set of APIs, all the windows that came after the window that got killed was yanked out as well, as the next window varible was inside the process that got killed. It was error-prone as well, programs that do not implement WM_CHANGECBCHAIN properly could affect the operation of the ChangeClipboardChain function, and windows that do not pass on WM_DRAWCLIPBOARD messages could affect all of the windows that came after that window.

Edit 2: Wow.. all that text there, Yohawn, and not a single answer. Good job. Idiot.

Edit 3: That was very useful information.

The description is not adequate to use this API. Please add more explanation like when this can be used. Probably…with a sample code.

[Conrad] Actually it's quite simple: All you need is your window handle, to start getting notification call AddClipboardFormatListener with your window handle, then later to stop getting updates call RemoveClipboardFormatListener http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms649050(v=VS.85).aspx.

Every time you get the WM_XXX message fetch the clipboard formats your application is interrested in. To handle the notification, add a WM_CLIPBOARDUPDATE handler into your message queue handler function.