🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul23.055026.17206@fcom.cc.utah.edu>
	burchard@horizon.math.utah.edu (Paul Burchard) writes:
>Wouldn't it be nifty to copy and paste objects between windows or
>even apps? This could easily be done using the Objective-C's built-in
>archiving capabilities.  To copy, just archive the object onto the
>Pasteboard.  To paste, unarchive it.  (Multiple objects can be
>placed into a List for transfer.)
>
>However, to make this work between apps there would need to be a
>standardized Pasteboard type registered with NeXT and included in
>the appkit header files.  Anyone know how I could register an
>NXObjectPBoard type with NeXT?

You'd need more than that.  This would allow you to copy NeXT-supplied
objects, which wouldn't be all that useful.  I could care less if
I can copy a Button between applications.

So, at the least, you'd have to be able to send object code across
so that custom objects will work.  If you put the objects in a
dynamic-load object file, this would be trivial.  Perhaps you could
just send a reference to the object file, rather than the actual
object code.  That way you'd save space on the Pasteboard, and also
the pasting program can more easily determine if it has already
loaded the file in question.

Of course, this brings in many other problems.  It's a lot of work
(sometimes even impossible) to have important Views and the like
stand completely on their own.  In most cases, they need a lot of
support from the Window they are in, or the Window's delegate, or
the Application, or somewhere.  So, overall, I think a much more
likely method would be to somehow transfer a remote object over a
Pasteboard, and let the originating program handle the actual
object.  I don't believe that NS3.0 "hot links" give you this
capability (I believe they use a different method to transfer image
data, not actual objects, between apps.  Please correct me if I'm
wrong.  And please don't just say "You are wrong", tell me how it
_does_ work).

Later,
--
scott hess <shess@ssesco.com>  <Who's now in a programming Berserker-frenzy>
12901 Upton Avenue South, #326  Burnsville, MN 55337 (612) 895-1208 Anytime!
<I want to become so famous that people buy tapes of me reading source code>