Name: lb39792 Date: 11/10/99


The main problem with the current clipboard is that it does not allow
non-String data to be transferred between VM's, even though the API
allows arbirtrary objects to be put on the clipboard. This needs to be
fixed ASAP (maybe even in Kestrel?) to serialize/deserialize objects for
inter VM transfer.

More on the enhancement side, the clipboard does not provide conversions
for common data types.
For example, you cannot transfer images between
Java and native applications. We should provide two way conversions for
common data types e.g.:
        - Java Image objects <-> native bitmap formats (BMP, PICT, X pixmap)
        - Styled text <-> RTF or whatever
        - Sound clips <-> native audio format
        - etc etc.

We should also allow Java applications to access unknown data types as a
raw byte stream in case they want to provide their own conversions.
Whatever data exchange formats we provide for the clipboard should also
be supported for drag and drop.
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Don't force SystemFlavorMap to build its map from a properties file. On some
systems, the mapping of data flavors to MIME types can be changed dynamically,
not just by modifying the mappings, but more frequently by adding and removing
items. Since SystemFlavorMap currently only supports using the contents of
flavormap.properties, it doesn't reflect any of the changes that a user may make
to a centralized OS-level mapping.
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For consistency between drag-and-drop and cut-and-paste functionality,
it's important that Java programs be able to modify (or at least augment)
the SystemFlavorMap. Currently it can only be modified by updating the
JRE's flavormap.properties file.

Any application or applet that wants to support custom flavors can do
what's required for a drop target; each drop target can have its own
flavormap. Cut-and-paste, however, requires use of the system clipboard,
which uses the SystemFlavorMap. The result is that such applications
can allow use of their custom flavors via drag-and-drop, but not via
cut-and-paste. This is an extremely unfortunate user interface
inconsistency to be forcing on Java applications.