Patent ID: 7913166

Claim:
A computer implemented method for manipulating a section of data comprising a plurality of data elements, the computer implemented method comprising steps performed by a computer of: receiving, by the computer, a first user input for selecting the section of data comprising the plurality of data elements from a source in a direction of selection, wherein the selecting of the section of data comprises selecting a designated data element from the plurality of data elements and then sweeping a selecting device in a certain positional direction to include more of the plurality of elements; responsive to receiving the first user input by the computer, selecting the section of data comprising the plurality of data elements from the source in the direction of selection, to form a selected section of data; receiving, by the computer, a second user input to manipulate the selected section of data; responsive to receiving the second user input to manipulate the selected section of data by the computer, determining whether to perform a manipulation on the selected section of data using a look-up table containing various data types with corresponding flags indicating whether to re-orient a given data type of the various data types and if the manipulation is so determined to be performed, performing the manipulation on the selected section of data using the direction of selection to form a modified section of data; receiving, by the computer, a third user input to manipulate the selected section of data at a destination; responsive to receiving the third user input by the computer, performing a manipulation on the modified section of data at the destination; wherein the direction of selection designates a sequential orientation for the selected section of data such that the modified section of data is re-oriented based on a direction of the direction of selection.