The overlay's views

The overlay can show the stack three ways: one clip at a time, as a list, or as thumbnails. Choose one on the Style tab of Settings; press W during a paste to try another for that paste only.

One clip at a time

The default, and the overlay as it has always been: the current clip, with as much of its text or picture as fits, its facts underneath, and its place in the stack along the top. V steps to the next clip and the overlay redraws around it.

One clip, its place in the stack, and along the top line the view button and the gear.

It keeps still while you step. The list and thumbnails views are one size throughout. The single-clip view fits each clip, but where it is centred on the screen — in programs with no text cursor for it to sit beside — its top-left corner stays put, so it grows and shrinks from the bottom and right instead of jumping. Tick Keep the Overlay One Size (the gear on the Single Clip card) to hold it at one size.

The list view

Choose List on the Style tab of Settings and the overlay shows the clips either side of the current one as well — newer above, older below, one line each — so you can see the clip you want before you get to it.

The current clip is the one with the bar down its left edge. The numbers are how many steps away each row is.

With Show the Preview Beside the List on (the gear on the List card): every clip is a row, and the current one's preview has a pane of its own to the right.

The number beside a row is the key that jumps there. Press 3 and you land on the row numbered 3 below. For the rows above, press − first to turn the digits round, as always. A pinned clip's number is drawn in the accent colour.

Everything else works exactly as before — V, the arrows, the wheel, search and the right-click menu all move the same current clip, and the rows follow it. A search or a kind filter narrows the list too, so every row is one you can reach. The list goes round the ends, as stepping does: on the newest clip the rows above it are the oldest ones, because that is where Up takes you, and a thin line marks where it wraps. How many rows appear above and below is set behind the gear on the List card, from none to nine each; every row is a line of height beside your cursor, so the defaults are two and five.

The thumbnails view

Choose Thumbnails on the Style tab and the same clips are drawn as tiles instead of rows: a picture for an image, the first few lines of a text clip, the names of copied files. If you copy a lot of screenshots, this is the view where you can tell them apart at a glance.

Newer clips, the current one outlined, then older ones — in the order of the stack, left to right and down. Each tile's number is the digit that jumps to it.

• The tiles follow the stack in reading order. The arrows move as they look: → and ← go to the next or previous tile, ↓ and ↑ to the tile directly below or above — a whole row at a time. V and the wheel step one tile, as everywhere else.
• Every tile says what it is. Along its bottom are its number and, on the right, an icon and its kind and size — Text · 404 B, Image · 1198 × 674, Files — so a path, a copied file and a picture can be told apart at a glance. A picture's dimensions appear once its thumbnail has loaded.
• Numbers work exactly as in the list view — press the digit on a tile to jump to it.
• Under the tiles is the current clip's information line, the same one the single-clip view shows: what kind of clip it is, its lines and characters or its picture's size, how large it is, and when it was copied.
• Pointing at a tile tints it and shows a tooltip describing the clip; clicking it pastes it — see Using the mouse.
• A picture appears a moment after its tile, the first time that clip is shown: it is read and shrunk in the background, so stepping is never held up by a large screenshot. After that it is remembered.
• The tile size, how many tiles make a row and how many clips appear before and after the current one are the view's own options — click the gear on the Thumbnails card in Settings, Style. Four sizes, from Small to Extra large; a larger tile gets a sharper picture and more lines of text.

Switching the view for one paste

The overlay's top line ends with the view you are in — its icon, its name and its key, such as Thumbnails (W) — and the gear. Clicking the view switches to the next one; W does the same from the keyboard. The switch lasts for this gesture only: the next time you press Ctrl+V the overlay opens in the view chosen in Settings, Style, which the switch never changes. The second button, the gear, opens Settings.

The views' own options — the image preview size for a single clip, the rows for the list, the tile size for the thumbnails — are behind the gear on each card in Settings, Style.