Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!samsung!uunet!mcsun!unido!gmdzi!strobl From: strobl@gmdzi.gmd.de (Wolfgang Strobl) Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac.misc Subject: Re: give me solid facts: why is the mac better than MeSsy DOS/WINDOWS Message-ID: <4253@gmdzi.gmd.de> Date: 10 Mar 91 01:53:47 GMT References: <12337@goofy.Apple.COM> <4194@gmdzi.gmd.de> <91067.222039JACOBSEN@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU> Organization: GMD, Sankt Augustin, F. R. Germany Lines: 49 JACOBSEN@SLACVM.SLAC.STANFORD.EDU writes: >There is a real difference in the operation of the Windows and >Mac clipboard models. It's visible to any Mac user of Excel, which >does the Windows clipping/pasting model even though it's on a Mac. >Specifically, you select some cells, hit 'copy', and then do some other >stuff (insert cells, change formats, close a window, etc). You then >go to 'paste' the data you thought you had in a specific place - the >clipboard. Arrgh - it's not there! Arrgh**2 - you've already changed the >cells you wanted a copy of! I just tried it with Excel for Windows. You don't have to change the cells to be copied to destroy the copy - every new cell action, for example typing something into another cell which is not member of the set of copied cells has the same effect of removing the moving frame and destroying the clipboard content. This behaviour doesn't conform to the Windows clipping/pasting model, which says that an application should keep a record of the last data copied to the clipboard, if it uses Rendering Data on Request. The delayed rendering should be transparent to the user, most of the time, but in the case of Excel, it actually isn't. This is a fault of Excel, in my opinion. >The problem for Mac users is this just does not conform to our mental >model of the clipboard as a place where copies are actually put. The >Windows model has some advantages and disadvantages, but it is NOT >equivalent. It is not equivalent, but it does not enforce a behaviour like the one Excel has. Can you undo a copy to the clipboard on the Mac? >(Incidentally, this is one of the reasons I really don't like Microsoft >Mac products - they really don't fit into the Mac well. Nor can they, if >they want to keep the Mac - Windows similarity) Excel 2 (I haven't seen version 3, yet) seems to fit neither into the Windows, nor into the Mac environment, exactly. I remember reading complaints of a Windows programmer who noticed that the behaviour of the Excel text entry fields was different from the usual ones, because Excel does not use the standard Windows edit control (which implements text entry fields), but implements its own one from the scratch. Wolfgang Strobl #include