When will we have a clipboard that works?

[Derek Broughton]

John L Fjellstad wrote:

> Mario Vukelic <mario.vukelic at dantian.org> writes:
> 
>> I don't think that is even possible. The applications need pretty deep
>> knowledge about the data structures. E.g. you copy a bunch of cells in
>> gnumeric - I think gnumeric has to tell the clipboard manager its data
>> structure and how to degrade it (e.g., when pasting into gedit). I'm
>> not sure I know what I'm talking about, but in any case data structure
>> knowledge is required somewhere, and a degradation policy.
> 
> Haven't look at the X clipboard code, but I would think it would expect
> a standard format, and it's up the applications to provide the data in
> this format.  The clipboard manager really shouldn't have to understand
> the data.
> 
Mario's mostly right - how can you have a "standard format"?  The problem is
that the clipboard manager _doesn't_ understand the data (I agree it
shouldn't) and so the receiving app needs to understand it.  Otherwise,
what you end up with is a plaintext representation (if you get anything at
all).
-- 
derek