Apple Inc.

Clay Maeckel

Christopher L Crim

Oleg Zaydman

Stephen Iremonger

Galt Johnson

Toufic Milan

Duc Vuong

Jonathan Thatcher

Lyndley Crumly

Erwin Hom

Richard L Kalman

Andrew Phan

Kathleen R Watson

Jeff Leveille

Methods, program products, and systems for displaying context-aware charts are described. In context-aware charts, content of a chart can reflect a context of the chart. A charting object can be defined using a data series. The system can dynamically determine what subset of a data source should be used for the data series, depending on where the chart object is placed in a layout, form or other display area. Therefore, a single chart definition can be used to display various charts based on the context of the chart. When a chart object is moved from one data area to a new data area, the system can change the source of the data series such that the data series of the chart corresponds to a different subset of the data source.

Context-aware charting

Methods, program products, and systems of maintaining data states upon forced exit are disclosed. In one aspect, an application program executing on the mobile device can maintain a connection to a remote data store and retrieve and cache data from the data store. When the mobile device receives an event that forces the application program to terminate, the mobile device can provide a time window in which the mobile device can perform various state preservation actions. During the time window, the mobile device can store data states, including states of the connection and states of the cached data. When the application program is re-launched, the mobile device can use the stored data states to restore a connection and a displayed view.

Maintaining data states upon forced exit

Methods, program products, and systems for automatically searching data in multiple data fields are described. A user can view data retrieved from a database and formatted based on a layout. While viewing the data, the user can perform a search using one or more search terms. A system can automatically examine the database and identify on which tables and on which data fields of the tables to perform the search. The system can identify searchable tables and data fields by analyzing the database schema as well as characteristics of the tables and data fields.

Quick find for data fields

Methods, program products, and systems implementing remote container techniques are disclosed. A relational database can include a container data field, which can be a data field for storing multimedia data. In one aspect, when the multimedia data are inserted into the container field, the multimedia data can be stored in one or more remote database files. The remote database files can be located separately from other data of the relational database and remotely from a client computer accessing the relational database. Corresponding data structures, or remote containers, can be configured to store metadata of the database files. References to the remote containers can be stored as values of the container data field. Using various encryption techniques, the remote database files can be given same access restrictions as access restrictions of the container data field, even when the remote database files are stored as flat files.

Remote container

Techniques for using both database internal and database external authorization information to control access to a database are disclosed. Corporate accounts which are generally used in many corporate environments (e.g., operating system accounts) can be defined as 'external' database accounts with database external authorization information that define database external access privileges for a database. The database external access-privileges are used in conjunction with a set of complementary database 'internal' access privileges defined for database internal accounts. An integrated access-privilege set is generated and used as a single source to authorize access to a database regardless of whether database internal or external accounts are used to access the database. As a result, databases can be integrated with various non-database entities (e.g., corporate computing systems).

Controlling access to a database using database internal and external authorization information

Improved techniques for implementing Network Copy Protection for database programs are disclosed. The techniques can provide Network Copy Protection across various platforms and/or connection protocols. Accordingly, the database programs can detect unlicensed use of the software even when different platforms and/or connection protocols are used by two instances (software copies) of the same database program. When unlicensed use of software is detected, access to data can be denied. As will be appreciated, in addition to supporting more conventional communication protocols, more prevalent connection protocols can be supported.

Network copy protection for database programs

Improved graphical user interfaces and techniques for requesting records from a shared database over a network are disclosed. One aspect pertains to a record range control that allows easy selection of a record range to be viewed. Another aspect pertains to a record range control that provides a graphical depiction of the record range to be viewed. In one embodiment, the record range control includes a background grid representing a complete set of records within a database, and a slider bar that slides over the background grid. The position of the slider bar with respect to the background grid identifies those records of the complete set of records to be retrieved or displayed.

Growing community of inventors

San Jose, CA, United States of America

Clay Maeckel