Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!panews!news
From: John McGarvey
Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.programmer
Subject: Re: Drag-and-Drop interface
Message-ID: <1991May16.021923.17532@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com>
Date: 16 May 91 02:19:23 GMT
Sender: news@ibmpa.awdpa.ibm.com (news ego)
Organization: IBM PSP Palo Alto, Ca.
Lines: 21

In OS2 1.2 you will find some drag-and-drop: you can drag a file to
the print manager to print it, or to (say) an editor program in the
start list to edit it, etc.  Unfortunately, this is a private protocol,
and was never published.  Some of us tried to decipher it anyway, with
only partial success.

So now 1.3 is out, with the official and very complicated, drag&drop
api's.  It must be said that this is not a finished job.  The 1.3 file
manager and program start list do not use these published API's yet,
but instead use the secret 1.2 API's.  So if you write an application
to use the new drag-and-drop (take it from me, it is not easy) your
application still won't work with 1.3 file manager.  Moreover, the
API introduces certain concepts like object types, rendering formats,
rendering mechanisms, etc., which are not really defined unless the
object is just a plain file.

I think what has been done is a good start, and the complications are
probably necessary.  But I think we will have to wait for OS2 2.0 to
make it usable for developers.

John McGarvey