Bash script with output to the system clipboard as a launcher command

I am running Xubuntu 20.04. I have created a small bash script where the user can select a line from a list with fzf and output the selection to the system clipboard. This is a simple one-liner:

cat list-select | fzf | xclip -sel c

where list-select is a simple text file containing the items to be selected.

The script works if I run it in the terminal, but what I would like to do is to create a keyboard shortcut for this script. This way, If I am for example writing an email, I could simply paste an element from this list using this script.

I thought that creating a Launcher would be a good idea, so I did a right-click on the Desktop and chose Create Launcher. I gave the launcher a name, wrote the path of the executable as a command and chose Run in Terminal as an option. Here is the desktop file:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Type=Application
Name=ClipSel
Comment=
Exec=/home/itsme/clipsel.sh
Icon=
Path=
Terminal=true
StartupNotify=false

My script is:

#!/bin/bash 
cat /home/itsme/list-select | fzf | xclip -sel c 

And it is executable:

$ ls -lah clipsel.sh
 -rwxrwxr-x 1 itsme itsme 62 Nov 14 16:13 clipsel.sh 

The problem is now that, when I execute this launcher, I am able to choose a line in the list, but there is nothing in the system clipboard.

I assume I must change something in the command of the launcher, but I don't know exactly what. Any idea?

Also, if you think of any other way to do this, I would be glad to hear about it.

Best regards

I don't have fzf installed, but I reproduced your issue using a simpler version of your script:

#!/bin/bash
echo "pasted string" | xclip -sel c 

And confirmed that it doesn't work when placed in a launcher unless you set "execute in terminal" to false. This launcher, however, works as expected:

[Desktop Entry]
Name=testXclip
Exec=/home/terdon/scripts/foo.sh
Comment=
Terminal=false
Icon=
Type=Application

OK, it turns out I don't need to create a launcher to achieve what I want.

I can simply go into the Keyboard settings and add an application shortcut there

It is working if I install copyq and use this command instead:

terminator -e "cat list-select | fzf | copyq copy -"

I use terminator as a terminal emulator but I assume it could work for other ones.

It would be interesting to understand why it does not work with xclip.