Smooth layout animation of visuals

A declarative animation system allows a designer to declaratively specify transitory behavior of a user interface or other visual display by recognizing changes in an underlying data model that spans visual elements. A visual display is typically comprised of one or more visual elements, as well as an underlying data model. Although animating within a particular visual element is typically straightforward, moving items across visual elements typically involves sophisticated programming logic. However, using the declarative animation system, visual elements can be associated with an underlying data model in a manner that allows the visual display layer to recognize and respond to changes in the underlying data model. This association can also be leveraged to allow automatically generated animation between visual elements without the addition of custom programmatic code. Thus, the declarative animation system allows designers to specify intuitive, graphically sophisticated interfaces without programming knowledge.