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Ask HN: Are you familiar with the idea of transclusion?

6 points by zhangruinan ↗ HN
definition according to wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transclusion

I am building an app where u can tranclude information across any two apps, say (Slack Thread to Notion), here is a demo: https://twitter.com/superusapp/status/1543985142468726785

14 comments

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bryanrasmussen
I suppose for it to work the different apps still have to allow drag and drop?

So your monetization would be superusers paying for this app to allow them to do this kind of thing, can you already do it via copy and paste operations?

zhangruinan
copy and paste only preserve the content, but not the context. u cannot go back to the original content u copied from.
capableweb
That might be true in a browser context, but I think both Windows and Linux (not sure about macOS) has the concept of a "clipboard" owner or "controller", which is usually the last application that copied data to the clipboard (although Linux also have the concept of "primary" and "secondary" "clipboard"), so when someone pastes into a application you're writing yourself, you could see where the data is coming from. Of course, you wouldn't be able to see what data the data that was made into the clipboard was derived from, but you get a bit of context at least.

Edit: Actually, my memory about how it works on Linux is a bit foggy, only part I'm relatively sure about is that Windows has the concept of clipboard "owner".

zhangruinan
I have once used an app (forget name), which can track down clipboard updates. I uninstall the app mainly because I cannot go back to the "context", only knowing which app the data is from is not enough. For example, I copy a sentence from a chrome to word. There is no url for me to reopen the website.
mikewarot
I've been digging into the Memex, and Ted Nelson's take on it with Transclusion for a while now. I know he, REALLY, REALLY thinks it's a great idea... I remain unconvinced at a gut level, though intellectually I suspect Ted is right.

I'm beginning to think a new type of bookmark with 2 ends instead of 1 might be the way to go in terms of meeting this type of functionality in building an associative trail.

Tabular-Iceberg
Please don’t abbreviate words that are already very short, it detracts from the legibility of your text. This is not Twitter, the character limit on HN is more than generous enough to allow complete words.
sdwr
I think this is an amazing idea. There are so many possibilities!
zhangruinan
I am thinking implementing the idea of transclusion between any two apps. So users can finnaly connect their usage of different apps into a continuous workflow.