Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!bonnie.concordia.ca!uunet!comp.vuw.ac.nz!actrix!kennels!sbeagle
From: sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz (Thomas Farmer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.applications
Subject: Re: General Complaints About Amiga Applications
Message-ID: <04se52w164w@kennels.actrix.gen.nz>
Date: 30 Jun 91 23:32:17 GMT
References: <1991Jun28.160813.11224@watserv1.waterloo.edu>
Organization: Orb Systems Unlimited, NZ
Lines: 42

tcapener@watserv1.waterloo.edu (CAPENER TD - ENGLISH ) writes:

> In article <phil.7996@phd.UUCP>, phil@phd.UUCP (H Phil Duby) writes:
> > In article <1991Jun23.200930.17561@watserv1.waterloo.edu> tcapener@watserv1
> > 
> > Try a few other programs.  ExpressPaint uses, and has used for some time,
> > the clipboard for graphics.  Excellence! uses the clipboard for both
> > graphics and text.

> Finally, I was not pointing out my own situation exclusively.  The industry
> (Amiga industry) as a whole needs a good dose of standardization (IMHO) and
> that was what I was getting at.  You wonder why the market doesn't take
> the Amiga seriously?  Part of it is the ignorance we all say it is, but more
> importantly, (IMHO) is that the Amiga market just isn't serious.  A lot of
> applications programmers are off following their own drummer, convinced that
> their own particular view of the world is best, writing programs with
> ideosyncratic interfaces and ignoring system conventions like the clipboard.
> Sure, word processors and text editors all have clipboard support and rougly
> standard interfaces, but the DTP programs don't.  The paint programs don't.
> The hypermedia programs sure as hell don't.

To a large extent I agree with you.

However, things are not as bad as they seem. Think of a clipboard on a
PC. Now, would you store the graphics in GIF? PCX? IFF? EPS? MSP? IMG?
or one of the versions of TIFF? (I've missed a few too.)

One nice thing about the Amiga when it comes to moving stuff around is
that we have IFF for graphics and sound with ASCII for text.

Using these standard formats, I use the RAM disk as a clipboard and
just save and load. I admit it isn't quite is nice, but it does work.

I've used this quite happily with such diverse programs as
Amigavision, Deluxe Paint, Digipaint, PIXMate, Cygnus-Ed, Professional
Page, and countless PD stuff.

sbeagle@kennels.actrix.gen.nz  aka  Thomas Farmer          Ph.+64-4-796306
"Apricot sometimes wished she lived in as ordinary a household as did her
 neighbours; though the more she considered the neighbours the less ordinary
 they seemed. ... perhaps all the normal people lived down another street?"
                                              Darcy's Utopia - Fay Weldon