feat(terminal): paste clipboard images as temp file paths (#42)

* feat(terminal): paste clipboard images as temp file paths

When Cmd+V is pressed and the clipboard contains an image instead of
text, save it to a temp PNG file and paste the file path into the
terminal. Useful for CLI tools that accept image paths.

* fix(clipboard): use async write, add error handling, prevent temp file leak

- Use async fs.promises.writeFile instead of writeFileSync to avoid
  blocking the main process on large clipboard images
- Add try/catch returning null on write failure for graceful degradation
- Use a fixed filename to prevent unbounded temp file accumulation
- Add .catch() on paste IIFE to prevent unhandled rejections

---------

Co-authored-by: maskar <Maskar@users.noreply.github.com>
Co-authored-by: Johannes Millan <johannes.millan@gmail.com>

Author: maskar

electron/ipc/channels.ts

@@ -102,6 +102,9 @@ export enum IPC {
   OpenPath = 'open_path',
   ReadFileText = 'read_file_text',
 
+  // Clipboard
+  SaveClipboardImage = 'save_clipboard_image',
+
   // Notifications
   ShowNotification = 'show_notification',
   NotificationClicked = 'notification_clicked',

electron/ipc/register.ts

@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
-import { ipcMain, dialog, shell, app, BrowserWindow, Notification } from 'electron';
+import { ipcMain, dialog, shell, app, clipboard, BrowserWindow, Notification } from 'electron';
 import fs from 'fs';
+import os from 'os';
 import { fileURLToPath } from 'url';
 import { IPC } from './channels.js';
 import {
@@ -463,6 +464,20 @@ export function registerAllHandlers(win: BrowserWindow): void {
     return fs.readFileSync(args.filePath, 'utf8');
   });
 
+  // --- Clipboard ---
+  const clipboardImagePath = path.join(os.tmpdir(), 'parallel-code-clipboard.png');
+  ipcMain.handle(IPC.SaveClipboardImage, async () => {
+    try {
+      const img = clipboard.readImage();
+      if (img.isEmpty()) return null;
+      const buf = img.toPNG();
+      await fs.promises.writeFile(clipboardImagePath, buf);
+      return clipboardImagePath;
+    } catch {
+      return null;
+    }
+  });
+
   // --- System ---
   ipcMain.handle(IPC.GetSystemFonts, () => getSystemMonospaceFonts());
 

electron/preload.cjs

@@ -93,6 +93,8 @@ const ALLOWED_CHANNELS = new Set([
   // File links
   'open_path',
   'read_file_text',
+  // Clipboard
+  'save_clipboard_image',
   // Notifications
   'show_notification',
   'notification_clicked',

src/components/TerminalView.tsx

@@ -195,9 +195,16 @@ export function TerminalView(props: TerminalViewProps) {
 
       if (isPaste) {
         e.preventDefault();
-        navigator.clipboard.readText().then((text) => {
-          if (text) enqueueInput(text);
-        });
+        (async () => {
+          const text = await navigator.clipboard.readText().catch(() => '');
+          if (text) {
+            enqueueInput(text);
+            return;
+          }
+          // Fall back to clipboard image → save to temp file and paste path
+          const filePath = await invoke<string | null>(IPC.SaveClipboardImage);
+          if (filePath) enqueueInput(filePath);
+        })().catch(() => {});
         return false;
       }