Failing to create a universal copy/paste
Copying and pasting are one of the most common actions that we do on a computer. Yet, from its first appearance some 50 years ago, it hadn't improved much. Sharing information is the driving force of our modern world and it very heavily relies on this mechanism. Although these are simple in their definition, our workflows today can suffer greatly due to cumbersome repeated copy/pasting. There must be a way to improve it.
The idea was simple - you copy something to the clipboard (Ctrl/Cmd+C), you open my app and are immediately greeted with input asking you to choose who to send the data or save it for yourself for later. On the receiving end, you'd get a notification and on it, an option to put that freshly received data in your clipboard. Copy/paste of all types of media, between different people, devices, services, across oceans! Imagine a coworker copying 3d asset in Maya and you pasting it into your workspace in seconds. Or getting a copy of a bunch of paper references directly, without needing to google the author and papers, downloading and then managing them. Rich content, no need for importing and exporting, or saving files and syncing. Just a simple set of actions in even theoretically minimal amount. Sounds awesome! Too bad it's impossible.
It turns out that apps usually implement copy/paste functionality completely internally, in their own memory and completely bypass OS' clipboard, just by overriding the default behavior for copy/paste shortcuts. Realistically, I should have foreseen it, because it makes sense, otherwise, in our example with 3d assets that would've been tens if not hundreds of MBs to store a partial transitive state - it would be too much.
On the dev side, partial implementation could be possible. Hijacking the process or DLLs, using in-app APIs to access its internal state or asking app developers to implement an interface that would allow outside process to request a fully standalone version of the copied content... However, a large portion of apps is web-based, and that additional layer of security and abstraction would in turn create even more headaches.
Hope is last to die, eh? For now, we'll have to settle with copy/pasting only text and images.
Me: Over and out.
Readers: Copy. Over.
Me: 😥
Sorry to hear this. But yeah, if it would be possible, it would be super hard to implement.
But the idea is indeed great. Probably this is why dropbox created different solutions for the same problem.
Don't give up and keep thinking about new ideas.
Yeah, bunch of partial and very restricted solutions, all solving the same core problem. Unless a sizable collaboration between developers is made and some standards are drafted, this will remain a pure fiction; sadly.
"Good" thing is that this was just a small part of a much bigger ongoing effort, so not everything is lost, yet still, failures are hard. Keeping it up. 💪
I have many ideas, then i always get excited. Then i start to investigate them. Most of the cases it turns out that it is almost impossible to build them or nobody needs them :)
Some stuff I learned recently: try to build an MVP max in a month. And release as soon as you can to get real feedback. I spent a year building something which maybe nobody needs :)
If you have time watch this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hHMwLxN6EM
He is the CEO of Y Combinator and his talk is just great.
This is a first for me, to not correctly foresee the outcome on a dev side of the things.
I have to agree that iterations are indeed everything, in most cases. Some challenges just require huge amounts of resources to begin with - e.g. insurance, banking,... The never ending cycle of learning and coming up with things is an entrepreneurial life that we chose.
And yes, a great talk, like many from Startup School, so a good pick! Michael often talks sensible things.