On 19/02/2025 by: 2025-group3
An interactive and customizable tool for managing layered elements and their relationships.
User’s Goal:
Organize, manipulate, and reuse layer orders for consistent slide design.
Command:
Layer management
Focus:
Slide
Slide Organization
Cascade introduces the simple notion of Layer Blocks for intuitive reordering and Layer Customs to save and reuse layer structures. It supports more powerful features like a location specific layer zoom, dynamic shuffling for expressivity, and subtle animations to support discoverability.
Cascades layer mode reifies the command of reordering into a persistent, directly manipulatable interface element, Layer Blocks, ordered in the side panel.
Layer manipulation applies the command across diverse objects such as text, images, and shapes, allowing all to be repositioned uniformly.
Custom layers let users reapply a set of previously executed commands, duplicating the ordering of multiple objects.
Custom layers reify the effect of ordering into a tangible, reusable substrate that appears in the custom panel.
Customs preserve multiple relationships through their style functionality, storing both the order of elements as well as visual properties like position and colour.
A copiable custom can be used as a template to transform earlier constraints into a reusable consistent layout/layer structure across slides.
After inactivity, layers in the zoom tool and layer panel bounce slightly to indicate they can be reordered.
A custom can be applied to selected layers and tuned in situ using the zoom layer tool, which enables users to focus on and reorder only relevant layers close to a point.
Through the shuffle feature, users explore dynamic variations in layer order and positions of objects based on mouse movement after selecting layers in the Layer panel.
Hovering over a Custom previews the applied effect, applying it on click and reverting if not confirmed.
Locking layers tweaks how constraints are applied, allowing only unlocked elements to be affected by a Custom.
The final arrangement captures the user’s expressive input and can be saved as a Custom, preserving the unique layering style for future use.