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Part 9 of this project

Clipboard

Copy and paste rectangular selections

Goal for this part

Copy and paste rectangular selections.

Treat 09-Clipboard as the source of truth for this checkpoint. If your local tree drifted, re-clone that folder rather than mixing files from neighbors.

What you should already know

You do not need prior WPF experience for part 1. Later parts assume you finished the earlier snapshots on the same machine.

  • .NET 8 SDK is installed
  • You can run dotnet from a terminal
  • WPF snapshots target Windows

Why WPF fits Gridlane

WPF’s DataGrid is a natural teaching surface for cells, formulas-lite, and clipboard paste—without building a full Excel clone.

Bind a 2D cell model to the grid. Keep parsing and file I/O out of code-behind event handlers as the sheet grows.

Checkpoint

After you run the snapshot, you should recognize the behavior described in the goal—before you move on. If the window (or server) never appears, stop and fix the run steps.

Code shape

Snapshots stay small on purpose. Look for this kind of core call as you read the folder:

File.WriteAllLines(path, rows.Select(r => string.Join(",", r)));

How to run it

Clone the teaching repo, open 09-Clipboard, install what the README asks for, then run dotnet run.

git clone https://github.com/michaeldunga1/fcc-wpf-spreadsheet.git
cd fcc-wpf-spreadsheet/09-Clipboard
dotnet restore
dotnet build
dotnet run

Common mistakes

  • Ignoring platform-specific install notes in the snapshot README
  • Wiring the happy path only and ignoring empty states
  • Blocking the UI thread on a long operation
  • Losing selection after a refresh

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