Drag and Drop (Paperback)

Please note that the content of this book primarily consists of articles available from Wikipedia or other free sources online. In computer graphical user interfaces, drag-and-drop is the action of selecting a virtual object by "grabbing" it and dragging it to a different location or onto another virtual object. In general, it can be used to invoke many kinds of actions, or create various types of associations between two abstract objects. As a feature, support for drag-and-drop is not found in all software, though it is sometimes a fast and easy-to-learn technique for users to perform tasks. However, the lack of affordances in drag-and-drop implementations means that it is not always obvious that an item can be dragged. Dragging requires more physical effort than moving the same pointing device without holding down any buttons. Because of this, a user cannot move as quickly and precisely while dragging. However, drag-and-drop operations have the advantage of thoughtfully chunking together two operands into a single action. Extended dragging and dropping can stress the mousing hand.