Re: [Adobe-source-devel] ASL and menus

[Sean P. <sp...@ad...>]

On Apr 5, 2005, at 8:56 AM, David Catmull wrote:

> On Apr 4, 2005, at 12:51 PM, Sean Parent wrote:
>> I'm still struggling with how to fully represent a subject but I do 
>> know that it needs to be able to represent collections within a 
>> container as well as ranges (perhaps a collection is represented as a 
>> list of ranges to merge the two concepts).
>
> I thought of a few different types of selections and insertion points 
> as I was examining that idea. Again, I define "insertion point" as a 
> location for inserting data (pasted or dropped), and the "current" 
> insertion point is where pasted data would go.
>
> Ranges
>     Mainly seen in text. A selection is a range, from a start index to 
> and end index. The distinction between selection and insertion point 
> is blurry or nonexistant. New content placed at the current insertion 
> point replaces the selection.

Ranges come up in many places - a selection in a scrolling list. This 
is why I proposed the notion of a collection - which would be a list of 
ranges, an insertion point is simply a collection comprised of a single 
empty range. A contiguous collection is a single range (empty or 
non-empty) which can also serve as an "insertion point" for operations 
which do a replace.

>
> List
>     A list or collection of items. A selection is a subset of the 
> items. If the order of the items is determined by the user, then an 
> insertion point indicates a position between two elements. If the 
> items are sorted, then the insertion point indicates "somewhere" in 
> the list, to be determined when the new content is received. This 
> could include hierarchical lists too, where an insertion point would 
> include a reference to a parent item.

You can have a range within a hierarchy also (see the adobe::forest<> 
container).

>
> Arrangement
>     As in drawing applications like Illustrator: a collection of 
> objects in n-space (where n is usually 2). A selection is a set of 
> objects, and an insertion point is a location within the space. The 
> current insertion point is the center of the space or of the view, or 
> in some apps it can be center of the selection.

I don't see a need for this yet - in Illustrator a collection of n 
objects is not denoted geometrically, rather by a collection within the 
art tree (using collection here as a defined it above). An "insertion 
point" is a location in the art tree and an x,y coordinate which is 
also part of the subject and applied to the new items. I'm not sure 
that this implies a transformation on inserted objects, or simply that 
new nodes in the tree pick up a default x,y location (artwork outside 
the tree only has relative positions).

>
> I think Photoshop fits in the Arrangement category, though its 
> floating selections are more complex, since they re-merge with the 
> current layer when deselected. I'm tempted to make a separate category 
> for that.

Photoshop is actually simpler (and similar) - the "selection" in 
Photoshop is not a selection as denoted here - it is itself a channel 
which is  part of the subject.
>
> -- 
> David Catmull
> unc...@un...
> http://www.uncommonplace.com/
>
>
>
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