Dragging data to Excel using DoDragDrop

[Bruce_Stough]

I am currently using Control.DoDragDrop to drop a text string into Excel. I
use the following code

DataObject dd = new DataObject();
dd.SetData(DataFormats.Text,"\\\\ws-it-bstough\\ShareFolder\\Test.wav");
DoDragDrop(dd,DragDropEffects.Copy);

The code works as expected but it will always populate into Excel as a
string literal and not as a link to the audio file. If I type the path into
a excel the link appears correctly. I am using a windows form in C# to
initiate the drag request.

Any Suggestions ?


Bruce Stough
www.cti-results.com

 

[Peter Duniho]

I am currently using Control.DoDragDrop to drop a text string into
Excel. I use the following code

DataObject dd = new DataObject();
dd.SetData(DataFormats.Text,"\\\\ws-it-bstough\\ShareFolder\\Test.wav");
DoDragDrop(dd,DragDropEffects.Copy);

The code works as expected but it will always populate into Excel as a
string literal and not as a link to the audio file. If I type the path
into a excel the link appears correctly. I am using a windows form in
C# to initiate the drag request.

Any Suggestions ?

I'm not sure you're going to be able to do that using the Text data
format. I've noticed in the past that Excel won't auto-recognize URLs,
UNC paths, etc. except when parsing direct user-input.

If you were using automation, there might be a way to get it to do the
recognition explicitly, but AFAIK you can't hook that up to a simple D&D
operation.

The one thing that does come to mind is the possibility of creating a
..lnk format object for the DataObject. That might be in a format Excel
would recognize and paste in as an actual link.

Of course, how exactly to do that doesn't come immediately to mind. I
guess you'll have to look into that yourself. But it's a thought
anyway.

Pete

 

[Adrian Gallero]

Hi Bruce,

The code works as expected but it will always populate into Excel as
a string literal and not as a link to the audio file. If I type the
path into a excel the link appears correctly. I am using a windows
form in C# to initiate the drag request.

Any Suggestions ?

I am not sure if you can use third party comopnents, but if that is
possible, we fully support dragging and dropping native xls data
(including hyperlinks) to and from Excel.

If you are insterested, you can take a look at
www.tmssoftware.com/go/?flexcelnet

download it, run the demo from the start menu, and select "API->Copy
and Paste" demo from the left menu. In the demo you will be able to
drag an hyperlink from Excel to the demo app, and then drag it again
from the demo app to Excel. Of course your app you can create the
hyperlink directly and let the user drag it to Excel.

The xls reading/writing/reporting part of FlexCel is free for non
commercial use, so it should be not a problem if your app is non
commercial. If it is commercial, I believe the price is quite
affordable anyway, and will pay itself very fast.

Best regards,
Adrian.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Peter,
I have tried to use a LinkLabel object as well but Excel seems to be
rejecting all requests with the exception of Text, Bitmap or Metafile. I
will keep at it, and judging from the next sales post it is indeed possible.

 

[Peter Duniho]

Thanks Peter,
I have tried to use a LinkLabel object as well but Excel seems to be
rejecting all requests with the exception of Text, Bitmap or Metafile. I
will keep at it, and judging from the next sales post it is indeed possible.

Yes, I'd agree. It does seem possible. IMHO, it's unfortunate that
Adrian didn't see fit to provide any suggestion as to how you might do
it yourself, instead choosing simply to market his own product.

However, simply knowing that it can be done is at least part of the
battle. Also, he does provide important clues. In particular, from his
description is sounds as though his code uses the native Excel data
formats. So, if you can use a native Excel data format from your own
code, you could probably package the link in a way that would preserve
the link formatting when dropped into Excel.

Now, whether this is a justifiable effort on your part depends on how
closely tied to Excel you want to be. This would definitely be an
Excel-specific thing, and might not be worth doing if your application
is to support drag-and-drop to a wider variety of programs. But if
you're writing something that is specifically to be used with Excel, it
might be worth the effort.

If you do find it worth the effort, the first thing I'd do is try to
find some sort of Office clipboard format documentation. Microsoft's
been told by the EU and other people to make their formats "more open"
so maybe there's some documentation on it. I'd start with the Office
web site, looking for some links to some kind of file/clipboard format
SDK or documentation. If that didn't pan out, I'd try to
reverse-engineer the format.

To do broad support for Excel data formats might be impractical, but for
the specific scenario it might not be too hard. Just do a drag-and-drop
_from_ Excel into your own application, dragging a cell that has a
formatted link like what you want to create, and look at the data format
that comes in. Then it should be a matter of replicating that format.

I doubt that Office is encrypting the clipboard data. Best-case
scenario would be that it's formatted as some sort of XML or other
string data, but even if it's a binary format I would guess you could
figure out what the "magic" bytes are and what the variable portion
describing the actual link are. You may need to try a variety of
different links, to pick up on where the string is stored, whether
there's any sort of character index or count, etc. But it could
probably be done.

Good luck!

Pete

 

[Adrian Gallero]

Hi Peter,

Yes, I'd agree. It does seem possible. IMHO, it's unfortunate that
Adrian didn't see fit to provide any suggestion as to how you might
do it yourself, instead choosing simply to market his own product.

I feel I need to clarify my position here. I am not trying to hide
anything. Even when I know I might not convince you, let me say I am
not even trying to market anything, I don't think newsgroups are a good
place to do marketing, and in fact, the effect is normally the opposite.

The situation is simpler, I just saw the post, and said, well, he could
do this with our product, and it might help him to know it. I can let
him know this is possible.

I doubted a lot before posting, because I know mentioning your own
product has an adverse effect on many people, (and I am not going to
post under a fake account) but I thought this could honestly help.
After all, if this was not the correct solution for him, he could just
dismiss the message. Now really after reading both Bruce's and your
answer, I think I maybe should have keep myself shut.

The reason I did not post a "suggestion on how to do it yourself" is
just because I don't know one. But I do know how to do it using our
library, and that is what I said.

The solution I mentioned is simple on the conceptual part, and I am
glad to answer any question I can answer about it.
It just puts a "biff8" object into the clipboard, or drags a biff8
object into Excel. Just in case, Biff8 is the native file format in
Excel. And the code to do that is on the demo I mentioned, all source
for the demo is included in the file you can freely download from the
page. So I don't know what else I could have said.

What Bruce whas doing was trying to put a text, link whatever object on
the clipboard, but Excel was not getting this as a link. If you put a
biff8 object into the clipboard (or drag one), Excel will understand
links (and formulas, cell colors, merged cells, etc).
I do not know any other way to put links inside Excel, even when it
might exist.

Now, to create this biff8 object to put into the clipboard, I use our
library. You could do it yourself, but programming a complete biff8
generator and this is a *lot* of work.

So if you ask me "is it possible", of course it is. Excel does it. (you
can drag and drop a cell with a link from a worksheet to another). And
you can do it the same, if you do the same Excel does. Now, doing
"what Excel does" means creating a biff8 object and putting it into the
clipboard, and for that the only solution I know is our library.

However, simply knowing that it can be done is at least part of the
battle. Also, he does provide important clues. In particular, from
his description is sounds as though his code uses the native Excel
data formats. So, if you can use a native Excel data format from
your own code, you could probably package the link in a way that
would preserve the link formatting when dropped into Excel.

I am giving more than clues. As mentioned before, the full source for
the app is on the page, if you care about it.

Now, whether this is a justifiable effort on your part depends on how
closely tied to Excel you want to be. This would definitely be an
Excel-specific thing, and might not be worth doing if your
application is to support drag-and-drop to a wider variety of
programs. But if you're writing something that is specifically to be
used with Excel, it might be worth the effort.

You can copy more than one format to the clipboard. for example, text
for apps that do not understand biff8, and biff8 for Excel.

If you do find it worth the effort, the first thing I'd do is try to
find some sort of Office clipboard format documentation. Microsoft's
been told by the EU and other people to make their formats "more
open" so maybe there's some documentation on it. I'd start with the
Office web site, looking for some links to some kind of
file/clipboard format SDK or documentation. If that didn't pan out,
I'd try to reverse-engineer the format.

The clipboard format is basically the same as the file format. But you
need tho create an xls object for this to work.

To do broad support for Excel data formats might be impractical, but
for the specific scenario it might not be too hard. Just do a
drag-and-drop from Excel into your own application, dragging a cell
that has a formatted link like what you want to create, and look at
the data format that comes in. Then it should be a matter of
replicating that format.

Not to be negative here, but I don't think that might work. The biff8
format is quite complex, and it has offsets everywhere that need to be
updated. (and the whole object is inside an OLE container, that has its
own fat table and offsets to the data).

I doubt that Office is encrypting the clipboard data. Best-case
scenario would be that it's formatted as some sort of XML or other
string data, but even if it's a binary format I would guess you could
figure out what the "magic" bytes are and what the variable portion
describing the actual link are. You may need to try a variety of
different links, to pick up on where the string is stored, whether
there's any sort of character index or count, etc. But it could
probably be done.

Good luck!

Pete

Or you could just use our library I just wanted to say it again, I
mentioned a valid option, that is valid for a lot of people (and we are
luckily selling very well). The fact that it is not a solution in your
case (or bruce) does not mean I am not trying to actually help, instead
of just trying to market my products.

Hope my position is clear now.
Best regards and best of luck with whatever solution you choose,
Adrian.

--

 

[Peter Duniho]

[...]
I doubted a lot before posting, because I know mentioning your own
product has an adverse effect on many people, (and I am not going to
post under a fake account) but I thought this could honestly help.
After all, if this was not the correct solution for him, he could just
dismiss the message. Now really after reading both Bruce's and your
answer, I think I maybe should have keep myself shut.

Or perhaps you could have just been a little more clear about things.

I don't think that there's any need to have an absolute prohibition on
mentioning one's own products. There are indeed situations in which
it's appropriate to mention that as a possible solution. But your post
was missing some elements that IMHO would have been important in
differentiating a post that's a really honest attempt to be helpful from
a post intended simply to market one's own product.

Note that I'm not saying your intent wasn't honest. I'm simply saying
it wasn't immediately apparent from the post you made.

The reason I did not post a "suggestion on how to do it yourself" is
just because I don't know one. But I do know how to do it using our
library, and that is what I said.

Well, one thing you might have mentioned is that you don't actually know
how to do it yourself. Nothing in your post made it clear that in spite
of being involved with a product that apparently supports this feature,
you yourself had no involvement or understanding of the actual
implementation of that feature.

Obviously it would be unreasonable for anyone to be disappointed in you
for not sharing information you yourself do not have.

The solution I mentioned is simple on the conceptual part, and I am
glad to answer any question I can answer about it.
It just puts a "biff8" object into the clipboard, or drags a biff8
object into Excel. Just in case, Biff8 is the native file format in
Excel. And the code to do that is on the demo I mentioned, all source
for the demo is included in the file you can freely download from the
page. So I don't know what else I could have said.

Nothing in your post mentioned the availability of source code. Nor is
it clear from your post (or even now) that you are offering the source
code itself as a guide to a solution, as opposed to requiring some
payment to use the code.

IMHO, assuming Bruce doesn't just copy your code wholesale, but rather
just implements his own solution based on techniques found in your code,
that would be a fine approach for him to technique. I doubt you'd have
legal standing to demand payment from him either in that scenario.

But you didn't write anything in your post suggesting that as a
solution. You didn't even mention that the source code was available.
Just that you had a library he could license for that use.

[...]

Now, whether this is a justifiable effort on your part depends on how
closely tied to Excel you want to be. This would definitely be an
Excel-specific thing, and might not be worth doing if your
application is to support drag-and-drop to a wider variety of
programs. But if you're writing something that is specifically to be
used with Excel, it might be worth the effort.

You can copy more than one format to the clipboard. for example, text
for apps that do not understand biff8, and biff8 for Excel.

Yes. Believe it or not, I do understand that. My point is that
applications don't generally go around putting every possible format of
data onto the clipboard. An application would generally only put
Excel's format on the clipboard if there was a high expectation that the
target application would be Excel.

If Bruce is writing an application that just happens to paste file
references as text to the clipboard to be used by a wide variety of
applications, he may simply want to accept Excel's limitation as given
and not bother working around it (and IMHO this is definitely a
limitation in Excel...there's no fundamental reason Excel couldn't do
the same "link recognition" when pasting data as it does in other
scenarios).

On the other hand, if his application is designed specifically to work
with Excel, then yes...it likely would make a lot of sense to do
whatever work is required to ensure a seamless interaction between the
two applications.

Pete

 

[Adrian Gallero]

Hi Peter,

[...]
I doubted a lot before posting, because I know mentioning your own
product has an adverse effect on many people, (and I am not going to
post under a fake account) but I thought this could honestly help.
After all, if this was not the correct solution for him, he could
just dismiss the message. Now really after reading both Bruce's and
your answer, I think I maybe should have keep myself shut.

Or perhaps you could have just been a little more clear about things.

You can always be more clear about things, and there will always be
people who will understand other things.
I think I was quite clear and posted a helpful answer (that might be
the only helpful answer actually posted in this thread). But we will
have to agree to disagree here.

I don't think that there's any need to have an absolute prohibition on
mentioning one's own products. There are indeed situations in which
it's appropriate to mention that as a possible solution. But your
post was missing some elements that IMHO would have been important in
differentiating a post that's a really honest attempt to be helpful
from a post intended simply to market one's own product.

Note that I'm not saying your intent wasn't honest. I'm simply saying
it wasn't immediately apparent from the post you made.

Again, I am not sure how I could have made it more clear. I disclosed
the product was made by my company, told him a viable solution where
there was not other real solution suggested, and that is all. I see
nothing 'dishonest' about it, but I will again agree to disagree here.

Well, one thing you might have mentioned is that you don't actually
know how to do it yourself. Nothing in your post made it clear that
in spite of being involved with a product that apparently supports
this feature, you yourself had no involvement or understanding of the
actual implementation of that feature.

Obviously it would be unreasonable for anyone to be disappointed in
you for not sharing information you yourself do not have.

Not sure you undesrtood my post. I do have involvement with the library
and the feature, but that doesn't mean I know how to do this "myself"
if by myself you mean not using any library. So I offered no help on
doing without the library. I offered help on what I know can be
reasonably done, get this feature using a third party lib that will
take all the gory details of creating a biff8 file. You tell me that I
should have also posted help on how to do it without it, but for that I
should know how (in a way that doesn't involve a couple of years to
develop your own biff8 lib).

Nothing in your post mentioned the availability of source code. Nor
is it clear from your post (or even now) that you are offering the
source code itself as a guide to a solution, as opposed to requiring
some payment to use the code.

Nothing in my post mentioned the source and there was no need to
either. If you are interested you look at it and see if there is source
or anything helpful, if not you just forget the post. I posted to help,
but I do not have to do your homework.

IMHO, assuming Bruce doesn't just copy your code wholesale, but rather
just implements his own solution based on techniques found in your
code, that would be a fine approach for him to technique. I doubt
you'd have legal standing to demand payment from him either in that
scenario.

Now really, I think we are going too much out of topic here. Why are
you speaking about my "legal standing", and why would I want to charge
him for using the code on a demo? The code for the demo is freely
available and you are expected to use it in your own programs. That is
the whole idea, and it would be silly to demand payment for that.

He will not be able to do much with the code without a library to
create biff8 files, but that is other story. But if he gets to do it
(maybe he can do it automating Excel) that is really cool with me.

And as I have said before I do not care about his payment. I posted
here to help him, not to make a couple of bucks. Whe sell at a low
price, so we need to sell a lot in order to recover our investment. An
order more or less does not make any difference.

But you didn't write anything in your post suggesting that as a
solution. You didn't even mention that the source code was available.
Just that you had a library he could license for that use.

And this *is* valid help for lots of people. I do not undertand why
there should be source code (even when there is) or why it should be
free in order to be a valid solution.

Yes. Believe it or not, I do understand that. My point is that
applications don't generally go around putting every possible format
of data onto the clipboard. An application would generally only put
Excel's format on the clipboard if there was a high expectation that
the target application would be Excel.

Well, my applications copy to the clipboard on lots of formats, and so
does office, and most apps I use. For example, when you copy text in
visual studio, the text is copied as RTF so you can paste formatted
code to word. But again, agree to disagree.

If Bruce is writing an application that just happens to paste file
references as text to the clipboard to be used by a wide variety of
applications, he may simply want to accept Excel's limitation as given
and not bother working around it (and IMHO this is definitely a
limitation in Excel...there's no fundamental reason Excel couldn't do
the same "link recognition" when pasting data as it does in other
scenarios).

On the other hand, if his application is designed specifically to work
with Excel, then yes...it likely would make a lot of sense to do
whatever work is required to ensure a seamless interaction between the
two applications.

On the first case, he can just disregard my post, it is not going to
help him much. In the second, what I said can be a helpful thing, and
be a better solution than saying "it isn't possible".

But I think we have lost much time here discusing things are not going
nowhere. So I am stoping here.

Good luck to both of you (honestly) and hope you get the best solution
for your problem.

Regards,
Adrian.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Peter, Adrian
I am sorry I misunderstood the original postings, but the followups
have been very insiteful. I will take a look at the biff8 format and see
what it has to offer. After taking Peter's suggestion I did notice that a
memorywriter object is returned as the dataformats are pretty much all
encompassing. I assume this is the standard return for a serializable object
though.
I will post again as soon as everything becomes clear

Thanks again for everyones help.


--
Bruce Stough
CTI-Results.Com

Hi Peter,

[...]
I doubted a lot before posting, because I know mentioning your own
product has an adverse effect on many people, (and I am not going to
post under a fake account) but I thought this could honestly help.
After all, if this was not the correct solution for him, he could
just dismiss the message. Now really after reading both Bruce's and
your answer, I think I maybe should have keep myself shut.

Or perhaps you could have just been a little more clear about things.

You can always be more clear about things, and there will always be
people who will understand other things.
I think I was quite clear and posted a helpful answer (that might be
the only helpful answer actually posted in this thread). But we will
have to agree to disagree here.

I don't think that there's any need to have an absolute prohibition on
mentioning one's own products. There are indeed situations in which
it's appropriate to mention that as a possible solution. But your
post was missing some elements that IMHO would have been important in
differentiating a post that's a really honest attempt to be helpful
from a post intended simply to market one's own product.

Note that I'm not saying your intent wasn't honest. I'm simply saying
it wasn't immediately apparent from the post you made.

Again, I am not sure how I could have made it more clear. I disclosed
the product was made by my company, told him a viable solution where
there was not other real solution suggested, and that is all. I see
nothing 'dishonest' about it, but I will again agree to disagree here.

Well, one thing you might have mentioned is that you don't actually
know how to do it yourself. Nothing in your post made it clear that
in spite of being involved with a product that apparently supports
this feature, you yourself had no involvement or understanding of the
actual implementation of that feature.

Obviously it would be unreasonable for anyone to be disappointed in
you for not sharing information you yourself do not have.

Not sure you undesrtood my post. I do have involvement with the library
and the feature, but that doesn't mean I know how to do this "myself"
if by myself you mean not using any library. So I offered no help on
doing without the library. I offered help on what I know can be
reasonably done, get this feature using a third party lib that will
take all the gory details of creating a biff8 file. You tell me that I
should have also posted help on how to do it without it, but for that I
should know how (in a way that doesn't involve a couple of years to
develop your own biff8 lib).

Nothing in your post mentioned the availability of source code. Nor
is it clear from your post (or even now) that you are offering the
source code itself as a guide to a solution, as opposed to requiring
some payment to use the code.

Nothing in my post mentioned the source and there was no need to
either. If you are interested you look at it and see if there is source
or anything helpful, if not you just forget the post. I posted to help,
but I do not have to do your homework.

IMHO, assuming Bruce doesn't just copy your code wholesale, but rather
just implements his own solution based on techniques found in your
code, that would be a fine approach for him to technique. I doubt
you'd have legal standing to demand payment from him either in that
scenario.

Now really, I think we are going too much out of topic here. Why are
you speaking about my "legal standing", and why would I want to charge
him for using the code on a demo? The code for the demo is freely
available and you are expected to use it in your own programs. That is
the whole idea, and it would be silly to demand payment for that.

He will not be able to do much with the code without a library to
create biff8 files, but that is other story. But if he gets to do it
(maybe he can do it automating Excel) that is really cool with me.

And as I have said before I do not care about his payment. I posted
here to help him, not to make a couple of bucks. Whe sell at a low
price, so we need to sell a lot in order to recover our investment. An
order more or less does not make any difference.

But you didn't write anything in your post suggesting that as a
solution. You didn't even mention that the source code was available.
Just that you had a library he could license for that use.

And this *is* valid help for lots of people. I do not undertand why
there should be source code (even when there is) or why it should be
free in order to be a valid solution.

Yes. Believe it or not, I do understand that. My point is that
applications don't generally go around putting every possible format
of data onto the clipboard. An application would generally only put
Excel's format on the clipboard if there was a high expectation that
the target application would be Excel.

Well, my applications copy to the clipboard on lots of formats, and so
does office, and most apps I use. For example, when you copy text in
visual studio, the text is copied as RTF so you can paste formatted
code to word. But again, agree to disagree.

If Bruce is writing an application that just happens to paste file
references as text to the clipboard to be used by a wide variety of
applications, he may simply want to accept Excel's limitation as given
and not bother working around it (and IMHO this is definitely a
limitation in Excel...there's no fundamental reason Excel couldn't do
the same "link recognition" when pasting data as it does in other
scenarios).

On the other hand, if his application is designed specifically to work
with Excel, then yes...it likely would make a lot of sense to do
whatever work is required to ensure a seamless interaction between the
two applications.

On the first case, he can just disregard my post, it is not going to
help him much. In the second, what I said can be a helpful thing, and
be a better solution than saying "it isn't possible".

But I think we have lost much time here discusing things are not going
nowhere. So I am stoping here.

Good luck to both of you (honestly) and hope you get the best solution
for your problem.

Regards,
Adrian.

 

[Peter Duniho]

You can always be more clear about things, and there will always be
people who will understand other things.

When two different people have clearly misunderstood your post, and no
other person has positively stated that they understood your post, it
would be unwise to assume you have no room for improvement.

That said, I'm still not entirely clear on what you're offering. Your
second post may have simply confused the issue, as it seems we both got
the correct impression the first time around.

[...]

Note that I'm not saying your intent wasn't honest. I'm simply saying
it wasn't immediately apparent from the post you made.

Again, I am not sure how I could have made it more clear. I disclosed
the product was made by my company, told him a viable solution where
there was not other real solution suggested, and that is all. I see
nothing 'dishonest' about it, but I will again agree to disagree here.

The "honest" comes in with respect to your intent, not your disclosure.
That is, are you really trying to help the person implement their own
code that accomplishes the same? Or do you just want to help them make
use of your own pre-packaged solution?

In a forum intended to help others with their own programming questions,
I don't find the latter to be of "honest intent". Your opinion may
vary, but in any case it's an entirely different question than the
question of "honest disclosure".

You certainly were up-front about the fact that you were offering your
product for sale. That's not what I was talking about though.

[...]
Not sure you undesrtood my post.

It seems that I did.

I do have involvement with the library
and the feature, but that doesn't mean I know how to do this "myself"
if by myself you mean not using any library.

That is what I meant, and you did not provide any indication in your
first post that in spite of being associated with a product that
implemented that functionality, you yourself had no knowledge of how to
implement it.

There's nothing wrong with you not knowing how to do it. There's not
even anything wrong with you not stating so explicitly, per se. It's
just that had you said so explicitly, it would have avoided some
confusion regarding your potential ability to help and the difference
between you refusing to help and you simply not being able to.

[...]

IMHO, assuming Bruce doesn't just copy your code wholesale, but rather
just implements his own solution based on techniques found in your
code, that would be a fine approach for him to technique. I doubt
you'd have legal standing to demand payment from him either in that
scenario.

Now really, I think we are going too much out of topic here. Why are
you speaking about my "legal standing", and why would I want to charge
him for using the code on a demo? The code for the demo is freely
available and you are expected to use it in your own programs. That is
the whole idea, and it would be silly to demand payment for that.

Well, here again is a simple misunderstanding. You wrote that "It just
puts a "biff8" object into the clipboard, or drags a biff8 object into
Excel. Just in case, Biff8 is the native file format in Excel. And the
code to do that is on the demo I mentioned, all source for the demo is
included in the file you can freely download from the page".

While your meaning is now clear, one interpretation of what you wrote is
that the code that's available is the code that "puts a 'biff8' object
into the clipboard". That is, implements the specific functionality
being requested by Bruce to solve his problem.

Instead, the code turns out to simply be example code of how to use
_your_ library to accomplish the same. With your further elaboration,
the meaning is clear, but I assure you that was not at all clear from
your previous post.

Now that you (I hope) understand how I misunderstood what you wrote, you
can understand the point of my reply. It's obviously not relevant,
since it was based on a misunderstanding.

A lot of your objection to my post seems to be regarding this point. I
hope you see now that what I wrote was perfectly reasonable given the
understanding I had, even if that understanding turned out to be
incorrect after all.

[...]

Yes. Believe it or not, I do understand that. My point is that
applications don't generally go around putting every possible format
of data onto the clipboard. An application would generally only put
Excel's format on the clipboard if there was a high expectation that
the target application would be Excel.

Well, my applications copy to the clipboard on lots of formats,

Your applications are not necessarily indicative of what most
applications require. In fact, the fact that you have seen a need to
implement BIFF support strongly suggests to me that your applications
are designed with a very specific need in mind, to operate well with Office.

Most applications do not share this need.

and so does office,

I would hope that it can be taken as granted that Office applications
are all written with the expectation that they will be used with each other.

and most apps I use. For example, when you copy text in
visual studio, the text is copied as RTF so you can paste formatted
code to word. But again, agree to disagree.

What does RTF have to do with BIFF? RTF is a well-documented, standard
text-formatting format understood by a wide variety of applications.
Any application that uses formatted text as a copyable piece of data is
likely to export and import RTF, and for good reason.

BIFF, on the other hand, is a very specific format for a very specific
purpose, not widely supported, and not worth messing around with unless
you have a specific need to interoperate with Excel.

How does broad support for RTF in any way justify an application also
supporting BIFF, if that application is not designed or intended to
specifically work with Excel?

[...]
On the first case, he can just disregard my post, it is not going to
help him much. In the second, what I said can be a helpful thing, and
be a better solution than saying "it isn't possible".

Yes, I agree and said as much in a previous post. It is very helpful to
know that it can be done.

However, this forum is primarily for helping other people implement
their own code. It's clear now that you don't have the information
required to go beyond the solution you offered, and there's nothing
wrong with that. My point is simply that your original post did not
make this at all clear, and IMHO you should not be surprised that it
wasn't clear.

If after all of this, you wish to remain surprised, that is of course
your prerogative. It is just my opinion, after all.

Pete

 

[Adrian Gallero]

Peter,

You have expressed your opinion, I have expressed mine, and I don't
think it makes sense to repeat it again and again.

I think the root of all our misunderstandings is here:

However, this forum is primarily for helping other people implement
their own code.

I believe this forum is primarily for helping other people solve their
problems.

In you light, what you said makes sense. In my pov, whay I said (and
did) makes sense too.

This is my last post here, since this is not going nowhere.
Best regards,
Adrian.

 

[Adrian Gallero]

Hi Bruce,

Nice to know you could get something constructive after all. Hope you
can solve your problems, and if you have any doubt where you think I
can help about your implementation, please feel free to contact me.

Good luck
Adrian.

Thanks Peter, Adrian
I am sorry I misunderstood the original postings, but the
followups have been very insiteful. I will take a look at the biff8
format and see what it has to offer. After taking Peter's suggestion
I did notice that a memorywriter object is returned as the
dataformats are pretty much all encompassing. I assume this is the
standard return for a serializable object though.
I will post again as soon as everything becomes clear

Thanks again for everyones help.

--

 

[Peter Duniho]

You have expressed your opinion, I have expressed mine, and I don't
think it makes sense to repeat it again and again.

Yet, you keep doing so. Odd.

I think the root of all our misunderstandings is here:


I believe this forum is primarily for helping other people solve their
problems.

And I believe that's far too general a description.

We are writing code here. As I've said, I'm not actually promoting a
no-exceptions rule to exclude any reference to third-party libraries.
Sometimes those are just the right solution.

But the preferred solutions should be in the form of real, usable code
that uses the .NET Framework (and only the .NET Framework) to solve the
problem. If a person has knowledge that would allow that form of
solution to be posted, they should share that rather than just hawking
their own wares.

And just to try to make this even more clear, since this doesn't seem to
be registering with you: at this point, it's clear you don't have that
knowledge, and so of course I don't fault you for not posting it. It's
just that your first post did not make this clear at all, thus my
initial reaction.

My primary complaint (if you can even call it that) at this point is
with respect to the potential improvement with respect to communicating
why you posted what you did instead of a full solution.

Like I said, if you can't post the actual answer to the question, that's
fine. But you should say so, to avoid any misunderstanding as to
whether you are simply refusing to share your own knowledge in deference
to selling a product.

And to reiterate: it's simply the avoidance of the misunderstanding that
I'm talking about. If you don't mind the misunderstanding, then there's
absolutely no need for you to concern yourself with my comments.

I do think it's a bit silly of you to say that your original post was
perfectly clear; it seems to me that the mere fact that this thread has
taken the direction it has is proof enough that there's room for
improvement on the clarity front. But hey, that's your business. If
you think I'm wrong about that, there's no need for you to be offended
or argue about it. Just move on.

If you do insist on arguing about it, I am happy to oblige. At least,
to a point much farther than I suspect most people would. Even I have
my limits.

In you light, what you said makes sense. In my pov, whay I said (and
did) makes sense too.

This is my last post here, since this is not going nowhere.

You said that before too.

Pete

 

[Adrian Gallero]

Hi Bruce,

Just an idea I had this morning (I sometimes can't help having those
ideas in the morning...)

You might try putting an RTF object in the clipboard. It will not be as
nice as a biff8 object, but Excel will probably understand the
hyperlink, and creating an RTF file is much easier than creating a
biff8 file. I have not tested it so I can not tell you if it works, but
it surely is worth a try.

Best regards,
Adrian.

 

[Guest]

The fix is in for those of you that would like to know.

Excel ( Office in general ) utilizes html hyperlinks to reference UNC's. A
UNC path does not work due to no small part because Excel autoformats the
text when you press enter on the spreadsheet. In order to populate with
DoDragDrop then format the reference using an Anchor tag as such :

private void listView1_ItemDrag(object sender, ItemDragEventArgs e)

{

ListViewItem lvi = (ListViewItem)e.Item;
String s = "<HTML><A href= \"" + <UNC Path> + "\">" +
<HyperlinkText> + "<\\A><\\HTML>";

DoDragDrop(s, DragDropEffects.Copy);



}

Enjoy