Detect something just copied to the clipboard

Question

Hi everyone,
I'm wondering if it is possible for a java program to detect something just got copied into the system's clipboard? I don't mind using JNI if that helps. I need to be notified after a user "right click and select copy" in any application. They can be copying something in microsoft word and i want to be notified in my java program when a copy-to-clipboard is just made. Is this even possible in Java? I searched the forumn and didn't see any topic on this. TIA

Answer 1

Run this program, it is an example of monitoring the clipboard.
import java.awt.*;
import java.awt.datatransfer.*;
class MyClipboardOwner implements ClipboardOwner {
    public void lostOwnership(Clipboard clipboard, Transferable contents) {
        System.out.println ("Someone copied something to the clipboard");
        DataFlavor[] df = contents.getTransferDataFlavors();
        for (int i = 0; i < df.length; ++i) {
            System.out.println (df);
public class Test105 {
public static void main(String[] args) throws Exception {
Clipboard cb = Toolkit.getDefaultToolkit().getSystemClipboard();
cb.setContents(new StringSelection ("Put this in the clipboard"), new MyClipboardOwner());
while (true) {
try { Thread.sleep(100); } catch (InterruptedException ex) {}