Story
I can use the clipboard to copy or cut and then paste items around. I can paste copied or cut items multiple times and a previously copied or cut item is replaced, if I copy or cut an item again.
If I'm unsure where I could paste the current content of the clipboard, I can use a clipboard function to show me all supported locations in the currently showing view. I typically use the clipboard only within a view, rarely across views, but certainly only within a workspace.
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 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 views with different types of items.
The clipboard belongs to a workspace
In Magnolia, the clipboard is a workspace-level function. As such, it is associated with a workspace and thus with the item set it shows. The clipboard works across all subsets and between all views of a workspace.
Every workspace has its own toolbar with its own clipboard, but clipboards cannot interact with each other. The implications and semantics of performing an item copy operation across workspaces and thus domains are hard to understand and might even make no sense at all in some cases. By putting the clipboard inside the toolbar, it remains a function local to the workspace and works intuitively how you'd expect without guessing its meaning.
This also holds, if there's a semantically equivalent or similar item set in a different workspace. As an example, if you have a set of pages under "Website", but also a set of pages under "A-B testing", you can't copy a page from "Website" to "A-B testing".
Switching workspaces
If the user switches from one workspace to another, the contents of the clipboard are flushed, although the rest of the state of the workspace is preserved. This avoids the confusion caused when copying items in one space, then hitting paste in another and getting different content possibly copied hours ago. Flushing a clipboard when switching workspaces also enforces our view of the clipboard as a local tool with temporary character.
Restrictions to pasting items
A paste operation must not be allowed, if the currently shown item subset does not support pasting an item type of at least one of the items in the clipboard. While the subset is only a filtered view and the paste might actually work, it is totally unclear what would happen and which item it would target.
Preview of paste operation
If 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 ^1. 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.
Please consult the usage summary for a full definition of mouse, touch and keyboard usage definitions.
Mockups
