A system for sharing an interface between objects is described herein that saves significant mounts of system resources, such as memory, in an object oriented system. The interface shared by the system described herein is an interface containing methods that perform a drag and drop operation. In addition, since one instance of the interface is shared among multiple objects, the system centralizes the processing performed by the methods of the interface. This centralization includes centralizing storage and state information associated with the processing of the methods of the interface, thereby further reducing utilization of system resources. The centralized processing occurs in a system where operations are performed on objects in a distributed manner (i.e., on an object-by-object basis). In other words, in a system where operations are typically performed on an object-by-object basis, the system described herein saves system resources by providing a mechanism for centralizing the processing of operations that are to be performed on multiple objects.

An apparatus and method for viewing multiple windows simultaneously within a dynamic window allows a user to relate several windows shown on a display without having to repeatedly arrange and size each individual window. In the preferred embodiment, once a window is selected and dragged into the dynamic window, the dynamic windowing mechanism dynamically sizes the window. Dynamic sizing causes the window to be sized in proportion to other windows already located within the dynamic window. For example, if the dynamic window is empty and a new window is dragged and dropped into the dynamic window, the new window will occupy the entire dynamic window; if the dynamic window contains two windows and a third window is dragged and dropped into the dynamic window, each window will occupy a portion of the dynamic window. The process of selecting and dragging windows into the dynamic window is repeated until all desired windows are displayed within the dynamic window. As windows are dropped into the dynamic window, horizontal and vertical boundary lines are created to separate windows. The size of the windows within the dynamic window can be altered by manipulating the horizontal and vertical boundaries. If a window within the dynamic window becomes too small, it is replaced by a button that shows the title of the window. The dynamic window allows multiple windows to be viewed on the same level (i.e., without overlap), without the time consuming process of having to repeatedly resize and position multiple windows.

Systems and methods which implement rendition-based graphical layout management techniques are shown. According to an embodiment, desired resizing of items within a program's user interface is managed through a developer graphically describing a plurality of different sized renditions of a desired user interface and other different sized renditions of the user interface being dynamically interpolated and/or extrapolated through operation of the program. According to embodiments, linear interpolation and/or extrapolation is provided with respect to windows sized differently than constraint images provided by a developer. In embodiments where more than 2 constraint images are provided, piece-wise liner interpolation and/or extrapolation may be provided. Non-linear interpolation and/or extrapolation may be implemented according to embodiments of the invention.

In a graphical user interface, a method for resizing the windows which allows to immediatly focalize on the desired part of the displayed image. The final image displayed in the window strictly depends on the way the window has been resized by the user.

A user interface provides a non-overlapped tiling mechanism for management of windows or panes. The non-overlapped tiling mechanism provides independent manipulation of panes and partitions between panes, and creates arrays of partitions from an array of panes in a tiled area. The partition arrays include whole partitions, segments, and combinations of segments. The various types of partitions can be managed and manipulated to effect resizing, repositioning and adjustment of multiple panes simultaneously. The mechanism provides free form and arbitrary arrangement of panes in configurations which do not require or necessarily exhibit any particular symmetry, any parent-child relationship, or any other fixed relationship among panes. The mechanism also provides for ad hoc addition, deletion and hiding of panes. Additionally, application regions can be freely associated and displayed with any of the panes, and associations between application regions and panes can be changed.