er, sorry, forgot to cc list
I think it would be possible to do something like that in Pd and the
iemguis, since you can move them with messages.

There is an alpha version of [cursor] in today's build which will
give you the mouse cursor position.  I just got some ideas of how to
do it better, so it should be better tomorrow. :)

If someone wants to try to do this, I am willing to do the work to
fill in the gaps in Pd so that it's possible.
 

 
Hm, if it was possible to do in Pd I'd /absolutely, without a doubt/ implement it.  Cursor position is gettable with toxy, by the way?

The iemguis allowing movement by messages is cool, but it wouldn't help for regular objects of course.  Offhand the pieces needed would be:
Query Pd for the IDs of the currently selected objects
Query Pd for the position of an object id
Move any object by message.

 
I guess you'd need namecanvas in every patch being manipulated (hm, how would you capture the key commands?  [key] needs focus, and [hid] wouldn't know what's focused?)...