Disclosure: I wrote the code that Trello uses; the code below is the actual source code Trello uses to accomplish the clipboard trick.
We don't actually "access the user's clipboard", instead we help the user out a bit by selecting something useful when they press Ctrl+C.
Sounds like you've figured it out; we take advantage of the fact that when you want to hit Ctrl+C, you have to hit the Ctrl key first. When the Ctrl key is pressed, we pop in a textarea that contains the text we want to end up on the clipboard, and select all the text in it, so the selection is all set when the C key is hit. (Then we hide the textarea when the Ctrl key comes up.)
Specifically, Trello does this:
TrelloClipboard = new class
constructor: ->
@value = ""
$(document).keydown (e) =>
# Only do this if there's something to be put on the clipboard, and it
# looks like they're starting a copy shortcut
if !@value || !(e.ctrlKey || e.metaKey)
return
if $(e.target).is("input:visible,textarea:visible")
return
# Abort if it looks like they've selected some text (maybe they're trying
# to copy out a bit of the description or something)
if window.getSelection?()?.toString()
return
if document.selection?.createRange().text
return
_.defer =>
$clipboardContainer = $("#clipboard-container")
$clipboardContainer.empty().show()
$("<textarea id='clipboard'></textarea>")
.val(@value)
.appendTo($clipboardContainer)
.focus()
.select()
$(document).keyup (e) ->
if $(e.target).is("#clipboard")
$("#clipboard-container").empty().hide()
set: (@value) ->
In the DOM we've got:
<div id="clipboard-container"><textarea id="clipboard"></textarea></div>
CSS for the clipboard stuff:
#clipboard-container {
position: fixed;
left: 0px;
top: 0px;
width: 0px;
height: 0px;
z-index: 100;
display: none;
opacity: 0;
}
#clipboard {
width: 1px;
height: 1px;
padding: 0px;
}
... and the CSS makes it so you can't actually see the textarea when it pops in ... but it's "visible" enough to copy from.
When you hover over a card, it calls
TrelloClipboard.set(cardUrl)
... so then the clipboard helper knows what to select when the Ctrl key is pressed.