Feature requests: page setup info and styled text transfer

[David Epstein]

I have been following this list for 6 months or so and have seen a couple of
"wish lists" that corresponded to my own highest priorities:

1.  some readable property that would allow a script to know what settings
the user made in the page setup dialog called by the "answer printer"
command.

2.  an ability to paste styled text from other applications into fields, or
from fields to other applications.

I have not seen any responses to suggest whether these features are in the
works or whether there is some fundamental obstacle to their existence.

For printing, Metacard itself must be able to "read" the page setup
conditions so that it can execute print commands.  But if scripters don't
know those conditions, they can't design appropriate printing routines.

A suggested syntax:

  pageArea property

  values:  two integers separated by a comma

  = The number of pixels wide, and the number of pixels tall, that can be
printed on one page using the currently selected page setup.

This property would reflect the paper size, orientation, and scale selected
in a Page Setup dialog.  Letter paper, portrait, 100% choices would make the
pageArea = 612,792 (or perhaps some reduction from that for printer-required
margins).  Legal paper, landscape, 50% choices => 1872,1224.  If this
information were available, the excellent "print... into <rect>" command
would be much more useful.

Can this be done?  And how about pasting styled text?

David Epstein