Date: Wed, 7 Jul 1999 20:49:42 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: Mikhail Ramendik <mikhram@dataforce.net> Cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Clipboard Daemon - thinking of writing one :) Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95.990707204819.23943l-100000@current1.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <003d01bec8f9$feeadf90$8fa02ac3@ramendik>
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The hard part is going to be the applications to co-operate. good luck. it's be nice. especially if it worked with the syscons cut-n-paste. julian On Thu, 8 Jul 1999, Mikhail Ramendik wrote: > 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 > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message
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