FluidIA right now allows to view an element in two ways. First, in instance mode, the selected element can use properties as defined by its inheritance rules (for position, size, content and events). These rules allow a more modular way of assigning properties to the element by letting the user to choose which properties are inherited and which not.
Secondly, an element can also be edited in the master edit mode which absolutely uses the master object’s properties and ignores all instance properties and inheritance. This however is a temporary view as in the final prototype view, the various elements will rely on inheritance settings when being displayed. However, the problem right now is that the selection between master edit mode and instance mode becomes remembered. So if someone leaves an element in master edit mode and returns to the saved file after some time, the master object’s properties are used and not the instance’s inheritance.
Perhaps a better solution would be to boomerang from the master edit mode back to the inheritance mode after 10 seconds of inactivity. This would allow the user to understand that inheritance settings are dominant and the most important. While editing the master in it’s pure form is only temporary.
Here are two sketches outlining the problem and possible solution.
I sometimes think that wireframing applications should have an animation software oriented method. Instance are like frames in a cartoon (a very short one).
flash or after effects have a way to group sequences and subsequences ("clips" in flash). Then, when the instance fade out, it can be retrieved in its clip at its position, a subordinate state.
Somewhat like a time line is an other idea to model any type of interaction…
Time sequences animation is a nice idea. However one must also remember that most interaction is based on rules composed of events (ex: mouseclick) and conditionals (ex: hold for a minimum of 3 seconds). These events are time independent. However once an event fires off, some sequential time based transition such as you are saying could be executed.