Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!pasteur!ames!oliveb!pyramid!leadsv!laic!nova!darin
From: darin@nova.laic.uucp (Darin Johnson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Supporting the clipboard (Re: Jerry declares the 2000 as 'the most improved computer')
Message-ID: <482@laic.UUCP>
Date: 21 Mar 89 17:34:48 GMT
References: <8903011852.AA16426@jade.berkeley.edu> <6193@columbia.edu> <10901@well.UUCP> <794@zehntel.UUCP> <10923@well.UUCP> <6206@cbmvax.UUCP> <1989Mar19.023257.20564@ziebmef.uucp>
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Reply-To: darin@nova.UUCP (Darin Johnson)
Organization: Lockheed AI Center, Menlo Park
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In article <1989Mar19.023257.20564@ziebmef.uucp> cks@ziebmef.UUCP (Chris Siebenmann) writes:
> I can't comment on why everyone seems to ignore the clipboard, though
>I have a pretty good idea. I can tell you why ComicSetter doesn't use
>it, and it's very simple.
>
> There's no IFF routines that will write to the clipboard, and it's
>not at all obvious how to write them.

Actually, I have seen a few routines that will write IFF to the clipboard.
The latest of these was iffparse.library - although that won't be out of
alpha/beta test for awhile (this is by Leo Schwab and Stuart Ferguson).
When this is finished (and if Commodore picks it up) then I expect that
IFF to clipboards will pick up.

But until then, here is a simple minded kludge.  Instead of writing
out the data directly, use two passes.  The first pass goes through all
the motions of writing stuff out, but will not actually do IO.  Instead,
it keeps tracks of sizes of chunks. Whenever it figures out a size, it
backpatches a table of chunk sizes.  Then on the second pass, actually
write out the data, looking up the correct sizes from the first pass.
The first pass is non-trivial for generalized IFF, but assuming that
you are outputing a known FORM, with a known nesting structure (ANIM's
would be hard, ILBM's easier), it shouldn't be that hard - certainly
lots easier than reading in IFF.
Darin Johnson (leadsv!laic!darin@pyramid.pyramid.com)
	Can you "Spot the Looney"?