I just want to make sure that the services entries will continue to
be valid, as in "Open URL", even though the selection is only exported
as RTF and ASCII.
Always allowing the ASCII pasteboard type, as well as the new W3 types
is a Good Thing, as far as I can tell, because it allows for a degree
of abstraction in the application. When someone selects text in a
text object, as the programmer of the application, I don't want to have
to guess at all the possible uses of the thing, and to program all
possible cases: not only is this frustrating, and time consuming, but as
soon as someone comes up with a new data format, my app will no longer work
with theirs. Unless, they use the ASCII type as a fallback for compatability.
So, if everyone moves onto this new pasteboard type, then nobody
using a plain old vanilla text object can communicate and pass data
in (ie. from within Mail.app). So, all I'm asking is that people don't
forget this, and still look for ASCII on the pasteboard if they can't
find the W3 types, and consider those valid.
- darcy
Begin forwarded message:
From: Greg Kostello <greg@pages.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 95 15:12:43 -0800
To: darcy@amber.hasc.ca
Subject: Re: Kudos and Note on the URL pasteboard type
Cc: WebStep@mail.xent.caltech.edu, peter@pages.com, jim@pages.com
Darcy,
Thanks for your input. We thought about using straight text, but let me tell you how we came up with a particular pasteboard type.
The W3URIPboardType is analogous to a NXFilenamePboardType. Even though NXFilenamePboardType is simply a string of characters, the intent of the data is what is important. When NXFilenamePboardType is on the pasteboard, the application can respond in a different way than it would if it simple found text. You can also choose to put straight ASCII on the pasteboard as well, so non WEB literate apps can respond accordingly.
Now, I agree that the application could parse all text strings for "intelligent data", but the application would lose context as to what the users intent was for that data.
I hope that helps.
Greg Kostello
Begin forwarded message:
From: Darcy Brockbank <samurai@amber.hasc.ca>
Date: Thu, 26 Jan 95 16:19:48 -0500
To: WebStep@mail.xent.caltech.edu
Subject: Re: Kudos and Note on the URL pasteboard type
[...]
Some things, like the Text object in particular, export only ASCII
and RTF pasteboard types. I'd still remain useful, I think, if tools
like OmniWeb, etc., are able to parse ASCII input and determine,
for instance, if this is a URL, and use it as such.
[...]