Subject: Re: SDI AbiWord, clipboards and overall design
From: Sam TH (sam@uchicago.edu)
Date: Wed Nov 22 2000 - 17:08:38 CST
On Wed, Nov 22, 2000 at 11:59:50PM +0100, Mike Nordell wrote:
> If any of the questions I raise now are explained somewhere else, please
> just point me to that location.
>
> The problems I noted with the lists dialog got me thingking of clipboards.
>
> AbiWord is and SDI (Single Document Interface - every doc has it's own
> [frame] window). Do we have a policu that there should only be one AbiWord
> process running at all times (the BeOS model) or are we to be able to start
> new AbiWord processes also?
We *definitely* currently allow multiple AbiWord processes on Linux,
and I'm pretty sure we do on Win as well. In fact, I have multiple
copies running much of the time, just to test different features. I
think restricting this would be a mistake, as well as practically
impossible.
>
> Why do I ask? Well, for one thing it impacts the way we handle clipboard
> data. Some clipboard data, such as formatted text, is handled OK. But what
> if I have one list selected in a document and select the imaginary (as in
> "not yet invented") "Copy List Layout". That clipboard format would not be
> recognized by anything but AbiWord, and it would also overwrite the
> clipboard with that format (for the platforms that don't have multiple
> clipboards - and then based on application).
> The solution to me would be to let this data either live in the address
> space of the *one* AbiWord application (if only one is allowed), or it would
> have to be transported by some other means (e.g. shared memory) if many
> AbiWord processes are allowed.
>
> Did I make any sense?
I really think I missed what you are going for here. Why can't your
imaginary operation just overwrite the clipboard like a normal copy?
I think trying to coordinate memory sharing between multiple copies of
AbiWord would be well-nigh impossible. Think about X forwarding for a
moment. I have often had AbiWord windows on my desktop that were
running on different computers. How would your solution deal with
this?
sam th
sam@uchicago.edu
http://www.abisource.com/~sam/
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