Inside Macintosh: More Macintosh Toolbox /

Chapter 2 - Scrap Manager

This chapter describes how your application can allow the user to cut, copy, and paste data between documents or within a document by using the Scrap Manager. When you copy data, your application writes the data to a specific location, and your application writes the data using a standard format. The Scrap Manager makes this data available to other applications. Furthermore, when your application copies data such as text or graphics, you write the data using the standard formats that all Macintosh applications should support. By using standard formats, the user can copy and paste data between documents created by your application and others.

The Scrap Manager supports the sharing of static data between applications. That is, once the data is pasted into another document, there is no connection between the data that was pasted and the original source of the data. To support dynamic sharing of data, where the user can copy data from one document into another document and receive automatic updating of the information when the data in the original document changes, use the Edition Manager. See Inside Macintosh: Interapplication Communication for information on the Edition Manager.

You can also support the copying and pasting of sounds, movies, publishers or subscribers, and other formats. For specific information on supporting sounds and movies, see Inside Macintosh: Sound and Inside Macintosh: QuickTime, respectively. For information on supporting publishers and subscribers, see the chapter "Edition Manager" in Inside Macintosh: Interapplication Communication.

If the Translation Manager is available, the Scrap Manager uses its services as necessary to translate data in one format into another format. For specific information on the Translation Manager, see the chapter "Translation Manager" in this book.

If your application uses only TextEdit for all text input, you can use TextEdit routines to cut, copy, and paste data. For complete information on TextEdit, see the chapter "TextEdit" in Inside Macintosh: Text.

To support the copying and pasting of data in dialog boxes, use Dialog Manager routines. See the chapter "Dialog Manager" in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials for information on how to create and handle dialog boxes.

This chapter discusses the Edit menu commands Cut, Copy, and Paste. For specific information on how to create and handle menus in your application, see the chapter "Menu Manager" in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials.

To use this chapter, you should be familiar with the Event Manager, in particular, how to handle suspend and resume events. See the chapter "Event Manager" in Inside Macintosh: Macintosh Toolbox Essentials for additional information on the Event Manager.

This chapter begins by describing how the copy-and-paste operation works and the user interface behind it. The chapter then discusses how you can

• get information about the current contents of the scrap
• read data from the scrap
• write data to the scrap

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Chapter Contents

Introduction to the Scrap Manager

The Clipboard

Intelligent Cut and Paste

About the Scrap Manager

Location of the Scrap

Using the Scrap Manager

Getting Information About the Scrap

Putting Data in the Scrap

Handling the Cut Command

Handling the Copy Command

Handling Suspend Events

Getting Data From the Scrap

Handling the Paste Command

Handling Resume Events

Converting Data Between a Private Scrap and the Scrap

Converting Data Between the TextEdit Scrap and the Scrap

Handling Editing Operations in Dialog Boxes

Scrap Manager Reference

Data Structures

The Scrap Information Record

The Scrap Format Types

Routines

Getting Information About the Scrap

Writing Information to the Scrap

Reading Information From the Scrap

Transferring Data Between the Scrap in Memory and the Scrap on Disk

Summary of the Scrap Manager

Pascal Summary

Constants

Data Types

Routines

C Summary

Data Types

Routines

Assembly-Language Summary

Data Structures

Result Codes