Abstract: A method and apparatus for laying out a plurality of instances of graphical objects within a view displayed on a graphical display device. The view contains one or more regions into which the instances may be placed. The placement is done by associating an attribute, parameter or variable with the definition of each of the instances of graphic objects. The attribute defines into which of the regions of the view the instance should be placed. Layout routines are provided to extract the value of the attribute from the definition of the instance of the graphic object and to use it to associate the instance with the region in which it is to be displayed. The layout routines then calculate an optimum display for all of the instances within the region. In addition, a method for moving the instances of the graphic objects from one region to another region This involves changing the value of the attribute and reordering the instances within the regions.