Simple is good enough

Same here, we're trying to figure out if a list of formats is really needed, or if always providing only one and having convertors is sufficient. This choice determines the API, so it's pretty important.

Only having one format and providing convertors is simpler, but less complete. My main concern is that it's not always sufficient, or that it makes implementing copy harder than necessary for some applications, because they have to create one "complete" format and convertors.

Another concern is that you convert from simple->complex->simple, when also supporting a complex type, hoping that the "simple" in the end is the same as what you started with. So the unrelated complex type makes simple types more complex too, with too much room for errors in my opinion. Or in other words, copying simple types is not simple anymore, if you also copy a complex one.

Lastly, I don't really see a way to support multiple types when pasting. It should be the pasting program's decision what type to paste, if it supports multiple types. I don't see another way than supporting a list of types in the pasting API anyway, and then you can as well support lists in the copy API too.

I think you make too many assumptions about what the user or pasting program expects in your line of thinking.

All in all I think the automatic convertion idea is good, but not always sufficient. Combined with today's multiple format support in applications, I think it's best to support multiple formats, but to encourage convertor usage when possible.

Then when someone pastes something the lists are compared, and if they have no common format, a convertor is used.

A list of formats is basically "more of the same", so I think the added complexity, both for the API and implementation, is small enough.

Now we just have to find some time to implement this. I think I'll give it a stab next week. I'll keep you informed (my email address is indan@nul.nu).