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From: lrg7030@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Loren J. Rittle)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy
Subject: Re: IAC (was Re: Clipboard (was Re: The Amiga's Future))
Message-ID: <1991Jun10.232402.23590@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 10 Jun 91 23:24:02 GMT
References: <1991Jun8.044840.1404@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <1991Jun8.074935.781@neon.Stanford.EDU> <38@ryptyde.UUCP>
Sender: usenet@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (News)
Reply-To: l-rittle@uiuc.edu (Loren J. Rittle)
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Lines: 31

In article <38@ryptyde.UUCP> dant@ryptyde.UUCP (Daniel Tracy) writes:
>Responding to the following:
>
>"  I think the whole question here is how strictly enforced these
>"standards" are.  You're right in that there's no reason why the
>clipboard couldn't be better than the Mac's.  But Marc's also right
>in saying that if applications don't support it, then the technical
>superiority is wasted."
>
>This is one instance in which the Mac's clipboard is superior to the Amiga's.
>Specific data types are contained in the clipboard (TEXT, PICT, etc), a list
>which grows as the need arises. An application in which a Paste command was
>given can check to see what data type the clipboard contains because this
>information is provided by the OS. The Amiga's clipboard is too free-form,
>or so recent posts would have me believe.

You don't know what you are talking about.  The Amiga's clipboard holds
exactly one type of object --- an IFF file.  IFF files are completely
structured, i.e. no free-form.  The applications reading from/writing to
the clipboard know exactly what the type of the data is because all
IFF files, by definition, contain type information.  IFF files can also
hold lists/trees of objects.  With 2.0's IFFParse, no Amiga application
writer can ignore the clipboard!  IFFParse makes reading and writing IFF
clips as easy as IFF files.

Loren J. Rittle
--
``NewTek stated that the Toaster  *would*  *not*  be made to directly support
  the Mac, at this point Sculley stormed out of the booth...'' --- A scene at
  the recent MacExpo.  Gee, you wouldn't think that an Apple Exec would be so
  worried about one little Amiga device... Loren J. Rittle  l-rittle@uiuc.edu