think-cell technical report TC2003/01 A GUI-based Interaction ...

4.3 Specifying the User Interface INTERACTION CONCEPT
(a) Suggesting a default placement . . . (b) . . . or the size of a neighboring shape.
Figure 17: The proposed placement for the new element depends on the shapes that
are found in the projection of the mouse pointer position.
(a) Neighboring shapes suggest their sizes . . . (b) . . . no matter how close they are.
Figure 18: If there are shapes available in both directions from the mouse pointer,
the size of the new shape is entirely determined.
dimensions – horizontally and vertically – a shape is found on the same level as
the mouse pointer, the width and height of those shapes are combined to suggest
a placement for the new element. This heuristic applies even if those other shapes
are found in some distance from the suggested placement (Fig. 18).
As explained above, the only distinct variations of placement in the smart grid
are to bind an edge to an existing gridline, or to place it somewhere between two
existing gridlines. Both variations are supported by single-click suggestions: When
the mouse cursor gets close to some border of the proposed placement, the placement
shrinks to take up only half of the suggested place. In this case, three edges of the
new placement are still aligned with existing shapes on the slide, while the fourth
edge is placed between the gridlines that are imposed by the existing shapes. In
any case, the new placement is perfectly aligned without additional efforts from the
user’s part. (Fig. 19 and 20)
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