Cut, Copy and Paste Activities

The Cut, Copy, and Paste operations are all available within the Screen Painter's layout mode. These operations can be executed within a single painter session, across multiple painter sessions within a single Zim session, or across multiple Zim sessions (including Zim sessions against different databases). Even though they do not use the Windows Clipboard exclusively, they do use it, so these operations cannot be executed across successive Windows sessions, or if the Windows Clipboard is cleared.

Both the Cut and Copy operations send a small amount of information to the clipboard such that the Paste operation can be selected as being available. However, the information that represents the complete descriptions of the objects which are cut or copied is not written to the Clipboard. Rather, it is written to work files in the ClipPath directory.

The ClipPath Directory

The ClipPath directory is the directory in which the complete descriptions of all objects which are cut or copied from your layout are written. The ClipPath directory defaults to the directory CLIP that is created underneath the directory in which your Zim software was installed. All Zim applications on a single workstation use the same ClipPath; thus object information can be cut or copied from one application and pasted into another. You can change the location of your ClipPath by adding the entry "ClipPath=path" in the registry. In fact, temporarily changing your ClipPath can enable you to Cut, Copy and Paste among applications on different workstations on a network.

Cut, Copy, and Paste across a Network

It is possible to Cut, Copy, and Paste objects among different workstations on a network. Use the following procedure:

• On the target (i.e. Paste) workstation, exit from Zim, ensure that the ClipPath entry in the registry points to a local directory (or use the default by omitting or commenting out the entry), re-start Zim, invoke the Screen Painter, and perform any Copy operation. This activates the Paste function for the target workstation.

• On both the source (i.e. Cut or Copy) and target (i.e. Paste) workstations, exit from Zim, and set the ClipPath entry in the registry to point to a directory on the network to which both workstations have access.

• On the source workstation, re-start Zim, invoke the Screen Painter, and execute the desired Cut or Copy operation. This writes the attribute information associated with the selected objects to the ClipPath directory which is now on the network.

• On the target workstation, re-start Zim, invoke the Screen Painter, and execute the Paste operation.

• On both the source and target workstations, exit from Zim and reset the ClipPath entry in the registry to point to a local directory, or omit or comment out the ClipPath entry. This ensures that subsequent Cut, Copy, and Paste operations on both workstations do not conflict with one another.

Rendering Object Images in the Clipboard

By default, the images of the objects that are cut or copied are not rendered into the Clipboard. This is because the image of an object is of little value. It is the collection of the many attributes that fully describe both the visual and behavioral characteristics of an object that is. The Paste operation needs access to the complete attribute information for an object so that it can construct the object. However, you can include image rendering into the Clipboard in the Cut and Copy operations should you wish. Refer to the Render images option in the Clipboard section of the Drawing Preferences dialog.