Re: DnD vs CnP (was Copy/Paste Events)

Le 13-août-09 à 13:34, Ian Hickson a écrit :

>> So I'm saying is that, regardless of whether you use voice, keyboard,
>> touch or mouse... There are two distinct concepts at play here.
>
> I disagree. The drag and drop model allows the user to drag to the
> clipboard and paste from the clipboard. This is exactly what copy-and-
> paste simulates. I don't see why this is a problem. If the drag-and- 
> drop
> code doesn't support dragging to another app, then that's a problem  
> with
> the drag-and-drop code, and providing a second API to work around that
> problem just for copy-and-paste doesn't help the people using the
> drag-and-drop feature in that fashion

To me it is a problem to confuse the two operations:

- drag and drop allows a precise visual target identification thus may  
be considered safer (and this is actually implemented so: you can  
faster drag-and-drop URLs than copy and paste them). Copying, however,  
is simpler and better understood as long as the selection model is  
clear.

- copy-and-paste is aimed at long term storage: if you write to the  
clipboard you have to write all the flavours you think a recipient  
would ever make use of! The clipboard often survives computer-restarts.

- drag-and-drop is aimed at direct negotiations: generally, only at  
the end of the drag is the actual data produced. In case this is  
running over a network-based conversion this is significant I feel.

So I would insist to split the two set of events while keeping common,  
of course, some of the interfaces to denote what can be transferred.

paul