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Experiments & Lab Prototypes

Ideas tested before committing to production architectures. Some evolve into full software projects; others exist to deepen intuitive understanding.

Build small throwaway prototypes until the mental model matches the physical behavior.

— Chetraj Jaishi — Laboratory Rule

Laboratory Catalog

1 logged experiments

#010May 2026 · Status: active

Floating Clipboard

An ergonomic Linux HUD utility designed for programmers and researchers who constantly juggle snippets of code, terminal commands, and citations. Pinned unobtrusively to the edge of the workspace with instant snippet cleaning, regex extraction, and sequential pasting.

Experimental Findings

Wayland wl-clipboard listener with transparent blur backing keeps toggle latency under 15ms.
Multi-item sequential pasting buffer eliminates modal window switching and preserves cognitive flow during deep work.
Lightweight Qt / QML window footprint remains under 18 MB in resident memory without task-switching friction.

Proof of Concept

import subprocess
from PyQt6.QtCore import Qt, QPoint
from PyQt6.QtWidgets import QApplication, QWidget, QVBoxLayout, QLabel

class FloatingClipboardHUD(QWidget):
    def __init__(self):
        super().__init__()
        self.setWindowFlags(Qt.WindowType.FramelessWindowHint | Qt.WindowType.WindowStaysOnTopHint | Qt.WindowType.Tool)
        self.setAttribute(Qt.WidgetAttribute.WA_TranslucentBackground)
        self.history = []
        # Listen for wl-paste / xclip events
        self.init_ui()

LinuxWaylandQt6UtilityUX

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