savela@tel2.vtt.fi (Markku Savela) (04/02/89)
I have question: how is clip/paste operation handled in
various windowing environments? Especially, which of them
are robust enough to support this operation for multimedia
objects? And, even further: is there any hope of getting
generally accepted representation (like ODA/ODIF :) for
the clip/paste data?
The rest of this text is just idle musings about this
subject, but...
----
An application can interact with the outside world via three
channels
<1> Communication (interprocess, network)
<2> Data Storage (files, databases, store & forward mail)
<3> User Interface (display, keyboard, mouse)
Depending on the application, one or more of these channels may
be used (e.g. primarily editor uses 2&3, telnet/ftp uses 1&3 and
database/ftp server 1&2). Each of these channels can also be used to
interchange information between applications. The use of channels
1 and 2 is well known, but how about channel 3, where the interchange
occurs via clip/paste operations?
I would like to see the following picture realised on my work
station. The important point is, that each component could be
supplied by different vendor and use completely different internal
representations.
Vendor C
Windowing
Environment
|| Vendor A
+-->||<--->MultiMedia
| || Conference
clip/ | |
paste | |
| || Vendor B
+-->||<--->MultiMedia
|| MailSystem
|
The only way I see this succeeding is, that the windowing environment
offers (or can be supplemented) with a generally accepted and powerful
data format for the clip/paste data. Currently, I know only one format
that fills the need: ODA/ODIF. (The fact, that the current version does
not *YET* support every kind of information, is not important. It is
designed to be extended in controlled way by new content types -- it
will support 3-D animated colour graphics in the future, if people
want it :-)
How about it? Am I talking something which is obvious and already
exists? (I only looked at the Macintosh environment. It seems that at
least there you could define your own "scrap type" "ODIF" and the scenario
would be possible; then it would only be needed to get the applications
to recognize this type, too). What about MS-Windows? X-Windows?
...in the future
"Hey! I just received mail which has this real time network
map -- just a second while I copy the picture for
you to look..."
"It's great, I better save it. No need to ask how the net
is connected. Now I just retrieve this picture when I
want to know..."
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Markku Savela | savela%vtttel@router.funet.fi
Technical Research Center of Finland | savela%vtt@FINFUN.BITNET
Telecommunications Laboratory | savela@tel.vtt.fi
Otakaari 7 B, SF-02150 ESPOO, Finland |