[Usability] Rubberbanding data



Gnumeric allows mouse-only resizing of a selection with a handle on
the bounding box of the focused selection. Dia objects have handles
that allow (some of) them to be resized. Resizable windows have borders
that (on Windows or with Metacity) allow them to be resized.

If GtkTreeView had a border on the selection containing focus, it could
allow mouse-only resizing of the selection in a similar way.

Existing methods:
  Gnumeric's bounding box is formed by 1px black lines on each side of
  the grey cell separator lines and 4 2px black squares around the
  bottom right corner. All of the border except the bottom right corner
  is a move handle; the bottom right corner is a resize handle. The
  mouse cursor is a right-pointing arrow when dragging will move the
  cells, and it's crosshairs when dragging will resize the selection.

  Dia objects show boxes (5px green squares with a 1px black border) at
  their corners and side-centers when selected. The green boxes are
  resize handles. The mouse cursor changes on click to the 4-way arrows
  for both move and resize - has anyone filed bug reports?

  Window borders are theme controlled, but many themes highlight the
  bottom corners. The mouse cursor changes to an arrow and bar which
  indicates ... uh, what side of the window you're on. Bug report,
  anyone? The mouse cursors should perhaps be bi-directional arrows.
  I'm talking about Metacity, of course.

Multi-line text widgets could also support bounding boxes. I've only
seen such a thing in one app, TeXmacs, and I don't recall its behavior.

Neither HIG 1.0 nor the draft mentions bounding boxes like Gnumeric's.

Cheers,
Greg



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