{"id":7771,"date":"2016-03-24T10:35:08","date_gmt":"2016-03-24T09:35:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/?p=7771"},"modified":"2026-03-26T16:48:25","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T20:48:25","slug":"an-interesting-os-x-feature-with-a-hint-of-deja-vu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/2016\/03\/24\/an-interesting-os-x-feature-with-a-hint-of-deja-vu\/","title":{"rendered":"An interesting OS X feature, with a hint of d\u00e9j\u00e0 vu"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, I made the decision, for the purposes of my own computing needs, to <a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/blog\/2015\/05\/28\/shutting-the-windows-moving-to-a-mac\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">consign Windows to history<\/a>. This was not a decision that I took lightly &#8211; in fact I approached it with a lot of apprehension. But now, with the benefit of hindsight, it was a very good move. Using a computer is now less stressful and annoying and can even be a pleasure or fun some of the time.<\/p>\n<p>Once upon a time, Windows seemed exciting &#8230;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>I recently stumbled across a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=8ucCxtgN6sc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">video<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"TEENS REACT TO WINDOWS 95\" width=\"640\" height=\"360\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8ucCxtgN6sc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Seeing modern teenagers reacting to Windows 95 was very entertaining and clearly shows how far we have come.<\/p>\n<p>I started using Windows with 3.1, which was great just because it was a novelty. It worked OK, but getting some jobs done required much jumping through hoops. Then, one day, I got a computer with Windows 95 installed. Everyone I knew at the time thought that they had died and gone to [PC] Heaven. Every aspect of the user interface was so intuitive. Essentially, if you could not do it using drag &amp; drop, you probably did not want to do it. All the obvious stuff was there: moving and copying of files, shifting data around inside apps, organizing the Start button menus. A feature that I was quite impressed with was, if I recall correctly, called \u201cScraps\u201d. You could select some text in Word and drag it outside of the app &#8211; not just to another document, but even on to the desktop, where it was a special file called a scrap. This could later be dragged into an app, when required. It was like having an indefinite number of clipboards. I do not recall how often I used the feature, but it was cool.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2016\/03\/Screen-Shot-2016-03-23-at-09.40.05.png\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-7772 noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright wp-image-7772\" src=\"https:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2016\/03\/Screen-Shot-2016-03-23-at-09.40.05.png\" alt=\"Screen Shot 2016-03-23 at 09.40.05\" width=\"150\" height=\"155\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>At some point, this feature seemed to go away in Windows. However, I recently discovered &#8211; almost by accident &#8211; that this capability is in OS X on Mac. I gather it has been around quite a long time, since OS 9. I have been testing the feature with a selection of common apps: Evernote, MS Word, Pages, TextEdit, Notes, Chrome &#8211; it seems to work perfectly with all of them. The mechanism is quite simple. You mark the text in the app and drag it out into a folder [or, most likely, the desktop]. It then creates a file with the extension .textClipping &#8211; the filename is the clipped text, or, if it is longer, the first 28 characters of it.<\/p>\n<p>This file can be dragged into an app, of course, but it can also be opened. If you right-click and choose Open With, you would expect the file to be OK to open with Word or TextEdit, but that does not work; the file opens, but appears to be empty. Opening with Preview is not allowed at all. If you double-click the file, to open it with the default app, it opens in Finder, which shows the contained text clip. I assume that it is using Finder\u2019s normal preview facility, but this does seem to me a little odd. I guess the format of of a .textClipping file is special.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/colinwalls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6579\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/linkedin.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/colin_walls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6583\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/twitter.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/colinwalls.author\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6591\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/facebook.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/plus.google.com\/116301748426290440139\/posts?hl=en%3Fhl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6587\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/google.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"40\" height=\"40\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/ColinWalls\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6595\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/slideshare.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"41\" height=\"41\" \/><\/a><a href=\"http:\/\/blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-6599\" src=\"http:\/\/s3-blogs.mentor.com\/colinwalls\/files\/2014\/01\/wordpress.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"44\" height=\"44\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Last year, I made the decision, for the purposes of my own computing needs, to consign Windows to history. This&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71677,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spanish_translation":"","french_translation":"","german_translation":"","italian_translation":"","polish_translation":"","japanese_translation":"","chinese_translation":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[302],"industry":[],"product":[],"coauthors":[],"class_list":["post-7771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-off-topic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/71677"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10455,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7771\/revisions\/10455"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7771"},{"taxonomy":"industry","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/industry?post=7771"},{"taxonomy":"product","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product?post=7771"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.sw.siemens.com\/embedded-software\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=7771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}