Designing cut and paste in a visual environment

Cut and paste operations are common enough that users expect them to be provided in any application. However, some applications in which cut and paste operations are desirable have ambiguities which make it difficult to interpret the user´s intent. A general method of designing this part of the system is desirable. Although current graphical environments exist which offer a simple version of cut and paste that can be easily implemented in applications, they are general in function and do not take advantage of any information available in the document. An environment that is designed to specifically support a single set of objects has the potential to provide more usable cut and paste operations, making common tasks easier and properly interpreting the user´s actions