[ANN] Get In Line - List Reordering Demo

[Alex Tweedly]

Scott Rossi wrote:

>Greetings List:
>
>It's been a fair number of eons since I last posted a demo, so here goes...
>
>Recently I was looking for an alternate way of reordering a list field using
>a translucent drag-and-drop effect, similar to the Layers palette in Adobe
>products.  "Get In Line" is the result of my experiments.  During the drag,
>a translucent representation of the source text is dynamically created and
>used along with an indicator to show where the text can be dropped.
>Currently the demo only handles individual lines but with some tweaking
>could probably accommodate multiple lines.  For folks looking to manage
>lists, try this out to see if it works for you (only tested on Mac OS so far
>-- Windows tests are appreciated).
>  
>
Cool !
I do see one problem though ....
On WinXP, rev 2.5: if I press the mouse button down and immediately move 
the mouse, it works OK (maybe not completely as you want - see the last 
section below).

However, if I press the mouse button down and do NOT move for a second 
or so (*), then I get an effect that looks like I am dragging a 
translucent background only; i.e. the text is not visible, but there is 
a darker translucent rectangle about the right size to be the text 
background.

(*) looking at the code suggest it is 300 millisecs not one second - but 
the "user view" report would say one second. Unfortunately, looking at 
the code doesn't suggest anything more useful than that, to me.



Works OK, but maybe not perfect.

I do wonder if what I see on WinXP is exactly what you intended or not. 
If I use the "few lines" test, click on line 3, and then move the mouse 
well below all the text, what should I see ?

I actually see

line 1
line 2
line 3
line 4

------------------------------------
                line 3  ( in grey )

i.e. the line I am dragging remains in its original place - though it 
will disappear then the "drop"operation happens, and the last line 
("line 5") is invisible.  I found that counter-intuitive - sine the 
insert happens "between" lines, I'd expect them to "open up " to show 
the translucent line going between - and I'd expect the line to either 
disappear or grey away from its original position.

Hope that helps - good visual effects are very hard to describe in words.
-- Alex.


-- 
No virus found in this outgoing message.
Checked by AVG Anti-Virus.
Version: 7.0.300 / Virus Database: 265.6.9 - Release Date: 06/01/2005