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

4.3 Specifying the User Interface INTERACTION CONCEPT
the layout, figures 24 and 25 are again live screenshots with only minimal
touch-up.
Overlap. In any other case, the overlap is taken “as is”, leaving all existing shapes
in their location and generating new gridlines where required. (Fig. 26)
I could use some modifier key to let the user determine whether to choose overlap
or displacement. However, this feature is not currently implemented – partly be-
cause the usual modifier keys already have some meaning in PowerPoint and partly
because it is not yet clear if such explicit user input is required in practice.
Also, in the current implementation feedback is limited to shading the suggested
or selected insertion area and highlighting gridlines that snap the caret. In a future
version, some kind of advance indication should be provided whether the insertion
area is interpreted as overlapping or displacing.
(a) User interaction . . . (b) . . . and the resulting layout, assuming that
the solver has appropriately rearranged the
grid.
Figure 23: Any cell of the smart grid can be split with a single click to make room
for a new element.
(a) User interaction . . . (b) . . . and the resulting layout
Figure 24: If the new element precisely overlaps an entire dimension of an existing
shape, one edge of that shape is displaced.
57