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Description of desired behavior
The basic clipboard function does not have to be explained in all detail - it is well known from applications such as Word or text editors. Content Any type of content can be copied to the clipboard and pasted in another location, but it can also be cut - copied and removed - and pasted later. The challenge is to do this right across multiple contexts with different types of items.
Please consult the usage summary for a full definition of mouse, touch and keyboard usage.
The clipboard is global
In Magnolia, the clipboard works across workspaces and the item sets they show. The clipboard also works across all item subsets and between all views of a workspace. Every workspace has its own toolbar with its own clipboard controls, but they all use the same, global clipboard to interact with.
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basic rule to understand the Magnolia clipboard is this: if the clipboard is there, you can
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copy items to it,
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replacing any item already in there. And you can paste
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the item or items in the clipboard, if its type is accepted by your currently selected item.
The clipboard may be missing in a workspace. It should actually only be shown (i.e. not shown with all buttons disabled), if a workspace can make use of it.
Because the clipboard in Magnolia does not offer a cut operation. It would be unclear how to cancel it, if you switch the contextHowever, content cannot be cut (copied and removed at the same time) and pasted later - this would lead to a number of confusing situations when copying across views, in particular if one attempted to cancel the operation. Instead, the clipboard concentrates on offering powerful copy&paste support only.
Also, when copying an item containing sub items, all the sub items are copied as well. This provides a powerful means to work with item hierarchies. A workspace may Magnolia does not offer a way to only copy an item itself.
Preview of paste operation
, ignoring all items it may contain. This is mainly to simplify and unify the way the clipboard works, but also describes how the "copy page" function currently works in Magnolia.
The challenge of implementing a clipboard in Magnolia is doing it right across multiple contexts with different types of items. In order to solve this, the clipboard has two main properties:
- the clipboard is global and
- it uses converters.
The clipboard is global
In Magnolia, the clipboard is truly global in that it works across all layers and views. If you thus e.g. copy a paragraph in the visual page editing layer, you can then paste that paragraph in structure editing in AdminCentral. While every interface might have their own clipboard controls, they all interact with the same, global clipboard.
A global clipboard is the only implementation not leading to confusing behavior. A per view or per layer implementation would either have to be flushed every time you change between views and layers or would have to remember the item copied last, both of which would result in bahavior difficult for the user to understand and anticipateIf a user clicks/taps and holds the paste function, a tooltip will show the number and type of items currently in the clipboard (e.g. 5 videos or 3 items) and will highlight all items in the current view accepting a paste of the content in the clipboard. This effect disappears again if the mouse button is released or the tap ends. Note that releasing the mouse button or ending the tap does not cause a paste operation in this case - you have to click/tap the paste button again to get this behavior.
The clipboard offers converters
While the clipboard will might typically be used to copy items within the same workspace or even the same view (e.g. to copy pages within the same site structure), Magnolia's global clipboard is more powerful , since as it offers built-in converters. Converters allow the clipboard to convert an item to a different, usually lower-level item type. If you e.g. copy a page in the website workspace, then open a dialog containing a field requiring a URL, pasting the copied page pastes its URL. The global clipboard becomes an even more powerful tool to copy content from here to there.
Magnolia's global clipboard has the following characteristics:
- any item may be copied
- the clipboard may offer its item or items in a number of different item types by using converters
- the selected item acting as the target of a paste operation usually only accepts one item type (e.g. a page)
- the clipboard tries to satisfy the expected item type by leveraging its built-in converters
a paste action there could actually paste the URL of the copied page.
Similarity with drag'n'drop
Note that this somewhat similar to how while converters may sound difficult to implement, drag and drop support is typically implemented:in common application frameworks already offers a similar type of behavior for quite some time. If you attempt to drop a dragged item, the following happens:
- any item may be dragged
- the drag source knows the data formats it can offer the dragged items item in
- the drop target consults the drag source and matches the data formats offered with those it supports
- the drop target chooses the data format, where most of the data and its structure is are preserved
It might be worth while worthwhile verifying if the two functions could leverage the same internal framework.
Using the clipboard
Please consult the usage summary for a full definition of mouse, touch and keyboard usage.
Optional: Preview of Paste operation
If a user right clicks or tap-and-holds the paste function, a tooltip will show the number and type of items currently in the clipboard (e.g. 5 videos or 3 items) and all items in the current view accepting a paste will be briefly highlighted. This effect disappears again if the mouse button is released or the tap ends.
As this operation uses less common gestures, it is considered less easy to discover and thus a power user function.
Mockups
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