Cocoa® Programming

Pasteboard Concepts

Before diving into code, it is important to explain the basic concepts relating to pasteboards. Although the code to work with pasteboards is generally simple, it is hard to follow without understanding the concepts and designs employed in Cocoa and Mac OS X.

Mac OS X allows for multiple pasteboards. Every pasteboard is meant to be used for a different purpose. For example, one pasteboard is the general pasteboard, also known as the clipboard. Data involved in cut, copy, and paste operations pass through this pasteboard. Another pasteboard is the drag and drop pasteboard. Any item being dragged is placed on and retrieved from the drag and drop pasteboard. The “Obtaining a Pasteboard” section later in this chapter describes ...