International Business Machines Corporation

Andrew John Smith

David John Clark

Raymond Trainer

Adam Alexander Dobson

David John Roberts

Leslie Robert Wilson

David Seager Renshaw

Simon Edward Moore

Paul Jonathan Englefield

Vanessa Donnelly

Matthew Jacob Perrins

Joseph William Bamford

Ian Holt

Simon Peter Goodchild

In many situations, the objective of data entry is to obtain a complex or structured value. This has traditionally been accomplished by providing a discrete entry field for each element of data entry. By extending the notion of an entry filter, and introducing the notion of a discrete editable element within an entry field, it is possible to apply a structure to that entry field. A management component enables one or more entry filters to be associated in turn with each editable element, and ensures that the entry filters are applied correctly to the appropriate elements.

Dividing a form field into areas associated with separate entry filters

A navigation manager component cooperable with a user interface renderer is described. The navigation manager manages one or more navigation units and maintains a navigation unit cursor. Each navigation unit is associated with another navigation unit managed by the same navigation manager. The navigation manager provides a range of navigation services, which operate upon the navigation unit cursor. These services include a service to navigate forwards and a service to navigate backwards. These services take into account the associations between navigation units in order to determine the correct sequence of navigation units for forwards and backwards navigation. The services also determine whether the items represented by each navigation unit include eligible items or items for which data entry is incomplete. In this way, navigation units for which all the items represented by the navigation unit are ineligible can be passed over by the navigation services, to that they never become current.

Method and component for navigating a hierarchical user interface representation

In a graphical application which allows an image to be displayed according to a display scale, a method of adjusting the display scale during modification of the image. The method responds to user selection of a modification to be performed on the image by storing the current display scale. Then the current display scale is automatically adjusted during modification of the image and in response to user completion of the modification the stored display scale is automatically returned. In a preferred embodiment, the velocity of a pointing device is measured and the display scale is adjusted as a function of the velocity of the pointing device during graphical modification and before the display of the image is re-centered on the pointing device position.

Method and apparatus for adjusting the display scale of an image

A range selector component displays and enables the definition of discontiguous sub-ranges from within a range. The component implements a paint mechanism for displaying the range selector component and one or more discontiguous sub-ranges within the range of the component; and implements mouse listener interfaces so as to respond to pointer interaction with the rendered range selector component, for defining the one or more discontiguous sub-ranges. In particular, the selector is responsive to pointer selection within a sub-range to split the sub-range into two sub-ranges.

Method and component for discontiguous range selection

Java&trade; Development Toolkit version 1.1.x (JDK) does not support the serialization of images. JDK on the other hand allows primitive data types to be serialized. This means that an application developer can design an application so that any primitive data type objects, including objects comprising primitive data type components, can be written to a file or another area of memory, before an application closes. When the application re-opens, the primitive data types can be de-serialized and so recovered and the application can continue as if it had never closed with the exception that image objects will not have been recovered. The invention discloses a component for a development kit comprising means for converting an image object into a primitive data type object and means for serializing that object so that the object can be made persistent. In a preferred embodiment, the component converts an image object to an array of integers representing the image pixels; creates a color table of unique integers from the integer array; converts each integer in the integer array into an index into the color table; and zip compresses the combined color table and array of indices before serialization.

Method and component for serialization of images

A set of Java Beans for facilitating data extraction from a JDBC-ODBC database in an application is disclosed. The set of beans includes a database driver manager component, DbQuery, having a plurality of properties allowing an instance of said driver manager to identify a location of said database, to define a query on said database and to store a result of said database query, DbResultSet. The driver manager also exposes an execute method for connecting to the database, executing said query and setting said database query result property, DbResultSet. Also disclosed are 4 selector beans, DbCellSelector, DbRowSelector, DbColumnSelector and DbCellRangeSelector. Each selector has a plurality of properties allowing an instance of a selector component to store a result of a database query having a given data type and to identify a sub-set of said result.

Universal database adapters

A computer system which includes a central processing unit, a bus, and a memory store coupled to the central processing unit that includes a psuedo 3D rendering mechanism. Typically, the rendering mechanism is loaded in the memory store, but can be implemented in an application's specific integrated circuit further coupled to the central processing unit via the bus. The psuedo 3D rendering mechanism is used to generate a psuedo 3D rendered virtual image using only two dimensional prerendered selected views of 3D objects to be displayed. As the viewing orientation shifts from point to point, an adequate three-dimensional rendering is provided based on these selected views. These selected views are designed for display on a display device further connected to the computer system.

Method and apparatus for providing pseudo-3D rendering for virtual reality computer user interfaces

Provided is a framework supporting presentation of help information via a computer system user interface in response to the proximity of an input device pointer to an interface area associated with a user interface component. The framework provides generic methods which remove from user interface components much of the task of managing the presentation of help information. The framework supports presentation of help information for a platform-independent component programming environment and supports presentations in a plurality of different styles (such as text, audio, animating graphics, etc) by means of selectable presentation methods.

Presentation of help information via a computer system user interface in response to user interaction

A user interface builder provides support for creation of customized user interfaces, enabling users to associate images, animation, sound clips and other media with specific predefined states of a user interface control. A set of object classes for each control predefined within the user interface builder include a first class defining the functional behavior and a comprehensive state model for the control, and a second class which encapsulates property attributes which may be set by a user to be associated with specific states of the control. In particular, desired graphics images, audio and animation sequences can be associated with a control via simple GUI interaction, avoiding the need for an interface creator to write code for standard interface control functions and so enabling easy creation of interfaces with semantic consistency and customized appearance.

User interface controls for a computer system

A method of presenting information via a user interface of a computer system is disclosed. The method is executed by a book component and a renderer component. The book determines page boundaries for pages in which information is to be presented, and communicates the page boundaries to the renderer. The renderer determines a number of pages, constrained by the page boundaries, required to fully render the information, and communicates the number of pages to the book. Responsive to the book providing an input token representing a prominent element of information on a page, the renderer determines a page number for the page containing the element of information represented by the token, and communicates the page number to the book. Responsive to an event requiring the presentation of a page including a prominent element of information, the book communicates the page number to the renderer. The renderer presents the page in a display area and provides an output token to the book representing a prominent element of information on the presented page.

Method and component for presentation of information

A user interface component, gauge, is adapted to present a changing value according to a pre-determined behavioral and presentational characteristic. The component includes a kernel which is adapted to display a presentation value; a control interface through which an external system communicates the changing value to the kernel; a presentation interface through which the presentation characteristic of the user interface component is determined; and a behavior interface through which an external system communicates with said kernel to determine the behavioral characteristic of the user interface component.

Growing community of inventors

Wellesbourne, United Kingdom

Andrew John Smith