Re:SIGCHI slashdotters could help out! (Score 1)

My two cents: I am a SIGCHI slashdotter, author of the mouse gesture program wayV (a few years ago now) and I've recently read up on different drag and drop methods, which I (shameless plug) wrote up about in "drag-and-pop, push-and-throw, push-and-pop" http://www.user-designer.com/index.php/20071213/drag-and-pop-push-and-throw-push-and-pop

Without a deep reading of the patent application: For possible prior art have a look at Patrick Baudisch's (Microsoft Research) work on drag-and-pop. Drag-and-pop is designed so when a "user starts dragging an icon towards some target icon, drag-and-pop responds by temporarily moving potential target icons towards the user's current cursor location, thereby allowing the user to interact with these icons using comparably small hand movements". There's a bunch of online videos and interactive flash demos where you can play with the technique. Mountaz Hascoët's work on push-and-throw may also be relevant.

I often wonder why the KDE/Gnome/Pick your favourite window manager don't cannibalise CHI research?