VB Forum / Win API / July 2008

Declarations (Watch out for line breaks)

Private Const GMEM_MOVEABLE = &H2
Private Const GMEM_ZEROINIT = &H40
Private Const CF_HDROP = 15
Private Const GET_DROP_COUNT = &HFFFFFFFF
Private Const MAX_PATH = 260

Private  Type POINTAPI
 x As Long
 y As Long
End Type

Private Type DROPFILES
 pFiles As Long
 pt     As POINTAPI
 fNC    As Long
 fWide  As Long
End Type

Private Declare Function CloseClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Private Declare Function OpenClipboard Lib "user32" (ByVal hWnd As Long) As
Long
Private Declare Function EmptyClipboard Lib "user32" () As Long
Private Declare Function GlobalAlloc Lib "kernel32" (ByVal wFlags As Long,
ByVal dwBytes As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GlobalLock Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hmem As Long) As
Long
Private Declare Function GlobalUnlock Lib "kernel32" (ByVal hmem As Long) As
Long
Private Declare Function SetClipboardData Lib "user32" (ByVal wFormat As
Long, ByVal hmem As Long) As Long
Private Declare Function GetClipboardData Lib "user32" (ByVal wFormat As
Long) As Long
Private Declare Function DragQueryFile Lib "shell32.dll" Alias
"DragQueryFileA" (ByVal hDrop As Long, ByVal UINT As Long, ByVal lpStr As
String, ByVal ch As Long) As Long

To add a single file to the clipboard this works:

Private Sub FileToClipboard(picFile as String)
' Add a file to the clipboard, this is the easiest way to do it - honestly!
Dim df       As DROPFILES
Dim lpGlobal As Long
Dim s        As String
Dim r        As Long
Dim txtPtr   As Long

s = picFile & vbNullChar & vbNullChar
df.pFiles = Len(df)
r = df.pFiles + Len(s)
OpenClipboard Me.hWnd
EmptyClipboard
txtPtr = GlobalAlloc(GMEM_MOVEABLE Or GMEM_ZEROINIT, r)
lpGlobal = GlobalLock(txtPtr)
Call CopyMemory(ByVal lpGlobal, df, Len(df))
Call CopyMemory(ByVal (lpGlobal + Len(df)), ByVal s, Len(s))
Call GlobalUnlock(txtPtr)
Call SetClipboardData(15, txtPtr)
CloseClipboard
End Sub

For multiple files a NULL seperated list should do the job

To get the files from the clipboard, this is part of a routine I use to add
the list to a ListView (LV):

Private Function ShowFileList() As Integer
Dim lHandle   As Long
Dim strBuffer As String
Dim lCount    As Long
Dim s         As String

LV.ListItems.Clear

If OpenClipboard(Me.hWnd) > 0 Then

 lHandle = GetClipboardData(CF_HDROP)
 If Not lHandle = 0 Then
   strBuffer = String(MAX_PATH, vbNullChar)
   For lCount = 0 To DragQueryFile(lHandle, GET_DROP_COUNT, strBuffer,
Len(strBuffer)) - 1
     s = Left$(strBuffer, DragQueryFile(lHandle, lCount, strBuffer,
Len(strBuffer)))
     LV.ListItems.Add , , s
   Next
 End If

This is nowhere near as simple as dealing with text or images in the
clipboard, but should not be too tricky. There are a few unintuitive aspects
and as I have not done much of this sort of thing for years I might not be
as much help as I could be, you may find that now I pointed you in the right
direction you can use Google to get any further instruction you may need.

Regards
Dave O.