Date: Thu, 8 Jul 1999 07:22:25 +0300 From: "Mikhail Ramendik" <mikhram@dataforce.net> To: <freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org> Subject: Clipboard Daemon - thinking of writing one :) Message-ID: <003d01bec8f9$feeadf90$8fa02ac3@ramendik>
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Hello! I am new to FreeBSD and Unix, but not new to programming and TCP/IP. I have noticed that there is no good clipboard system in FreeBSD. X has only a rudimentary clipboard, and outside X there is no clipboard that would be shared between programs... All this while Windows has a very interesting clipboard system that allows to paste as different types. I am thinking of writing a Clipboard Demon (of course, free and documented and source and all) to try and tackle this problem. It's going to be a daemon working over IP, it will allow "named clipboards" so that by default each user has one clipboard, but a user can start several clipboards and/or share one over a network (ok, insecure, at least in first releases - but then, it can be nonsensitive info over a LAN). It will allow a program to export data into the clipboard in one or _several_ formats (MIME, of course), and then it will allow the importing program to choose the format it wants (a la Windows, but no OLE stuff here) and get the data in it. For example, a GUI text editor can export the text as native format, text, formatted text (RTF?), vector graphics (unsure what format would replace WMF here), bitmap. This same editor will paste the native by default, another editor will use the formatted text by default, etc. Note that it will work independently of X. So I can copy in Joe then paste to GIMP (as text), if both support the clipboard. I will probably have time for actual coding in August or September. But I want to work out the specs first, and to make sure it's needed at all ;) So, my questions are: - Whether this thing is, in your opinion, needed - Whether a similar solution already exists in the freenix world (perhaps in Linux?) - How to handle "big" data? If a program exports a big graphic in several formats, that's a lot of data... Well, it can not actually send the data but only indicate it's available - but then we'd have to "call back" to receive the data, so the program would need to have a permanent connection with the daemon and "listen" to it, and the availability of data would cease when the program quits. Should I nevertheless include this behaviour as an option, to be decided by the exporting program? Now the newbie questions: - Where can I read a good text on writing FreeBSD daemons? - How can I choose a guaranteed free TCP port? Yours in Christ, Mikhail Ramendik Moscow, Russia To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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