For Internet Explorer, data transfer involves writing information to and reading it from the clipboard through a data transfer object. The information transferred includes both the data format and the data itself.
Data transfer involves two processes.
This capability is important for facilitating repeated editing tasks where persisting information in the system clipboard provides ease of use. One example of this capability is pasting the same data multiple times. This capability is best enabled for one-time operations because, once the drag operation ends, all trace of the data being transferred disappears. Taken together, these editing capabilties enable you to implement typical user-interface functions that users have come to expect of good software. The data transfer implementation in Internet Explorer 5 provides programmatic control over what data formats get transferred from data source to data target.