Losing Cell Values In Cut/Copy/Paste Operations?

The plot thickens. I tried to pull out the values from cells in BeforePaste event so that I could correct them in the After Paste Event.

Even though I could see values in debugger, could not access the values in my code. Here's the event handler:

Dim pastedvalues() As Object

Private Sub utvPlaces_BeforePaste(ByVal sender As Object, ByVal e As BeforePasteEventArgs) Handles utvPlaces.BeforePaste
    ReDim pastedvalues(1)
    Dim o1 As Object = e.Nodes.Item(0)
    Dim o2 As Object = e.Nodes.Item(0).Cells(0)
    Dim o3 As UltraTreeNodeCell = DirectCast(o2, UltraTreeNodeCell)
    Dim o4 As Object = o3.Value
    Dim o5 As String = CStr(o4)

pastedvalues(0) = e.Nodes.Item(0).Cells(0).Value
pastedvalues(1) = e.Nodes.Item(0).Cells(1).Value
End Sub

I get an exception at "Dim o4 . . ." line:

An unhandled exception of type 'System.NullReferenceException' occurred in infragistics.win.ultrawintree.v7.1.dll
Additional information: Object reference not set to an instance of an object.

. . . . Did some more work on this:

Source of problem seems to be that "Editor" and "EditorResolved" properties of cells are lost when Selected Nodes are copied to clipboard. Without the editor (a property of the ColumnSet) the tree doesn't know what to make of the Cell.Value and so sets the Cell.Text property to a nullreference.

To work around this problem, had to cancel the cut and paste operations in BeforeCut and BeforePaste event handlers and substitute alternative logic. This tree is not bound to a data source. Perhaps this works with a bound data source.

Here's some of the logic of the workaround:

For cut operation, cancel event, use recursive routine to mark node and descendants (ie., the entire branch) as disabled and store reference to cutnode. With escape key, user can reset the disabled branch. Or, if a different node is "cut", the earlier disabled node can be reset.. On Paste, reset cut branch to enabled and then reposition it under a new parent.

For copy operation, have to store a reference to the copied node. Actually, the reference needs to be to the selectednodes collection passed in the BeforeCopy event (or in mouseposition step during popup if using context menu). If set reference directly to node, subsequent reference setting will overwrite the copied node.

For paste step, use flags to distinguish whether in a cut or copy operation. For cut, reset cut branch to enabled and then reposition to under the new parent. For copy, have to create new nodes on the tree and update individual cell values.

This would be a lot easier if the component would reconnect the editor property with nodes in a paste event. On the other hand, couldn't necessarily make this a default behavior as some trees have different ColumnSets at different levels?