Taligent, Inc.

Object Technology Licensing Corporation

Other

Object Licensing Corporation

Object Licensing Licensing Corporation

Debra L Orton

David B Goldsmith

Christopher P Moeller

Eugenie L Bolton

Daniel F Chernikoff

Keith A Rollin

Andrew G Heninger

Bill Gibbons

Maire L Howard

David R Anderson

Arnold Schaeffer

Richard D Webb

Eric M Berdahl

Erich Gamma

William F Kraus

An apparatus for enabling an object-oriented application to access in an object-oriented manner a procedural operating system having a native procedural interface is disclosed. The apparatus includes a computer and a memory component in the computer. A code library is stored in the memory component. The code library includes computer program logic implementing an object-oriented class library. The object-oriented class library comprises related object-oriented classes for enabling the application to access in an object-oriented manner services provided by the operating system. The object-oriented classes include methods for accessing the operating system services using procedural function calls compatible with the native procedural interface of the operating system. The computer processes object-oriented statements contained in the application and defined by the class library by executing methods from the class library corresponding to the object-oriented statements.

Object-oriented operating system

An object-oriented interface is disclosed for conferring portability for object-oriented programming to diverse operating systems on diverse hardware platforms in a computer system. The object-oriented interface is executable on a plurality of different computer platforms and includes classes of object-oriented methods. The interface is responsive to the object-oriented programming which instantiates its objects from its own classes and invokes the object oriented methods of the interface. Operating system specific, procedural program logic is compiled for use on a given computer platform that includes given computer hardware and a given procedural operating system which is executable on the hardware. A determination is made if the object-oriented methods of the interface to be invoked during runtime execution are present in the program memory of the computer hardware. A runtime loader selectively loads into the program memory any required object-oriented methods of the interface during runtime before their invocation by the object-oriented programming. The object-oriented interface thereby provides native system services to the object-oriented programming from the given computer hardware and procedural operating system.

Object-oriented interface for portability to diverse operating systems or hardware platforms

A method and apparatus for an innovative object oriented framework system is disclosed. The system uses an innovative framework architecture to provide the first object oriented operating system.

Method and apparatus for providing an object-oriented application interface for a computer system

A computer system has a processor, a display, and a object-oriented application interface between a user input device such as a cursor placement device and an object-oriented application program. The cursor placement device has a user button for generating a device event signal for controlling a pointer graphic on the display. The object-oriented application program includes a plurality of objects with logic and data for performing particular functions. An interactor object is responsive to a device event signal to change the display from displaying an icon to a thumbnail display. An interactable object is instantiated in an application address space, and includes data and methods for manipulating the data. The interactor object is instantiated in a system address space and is responsive to the device event signal for calling a predetermined one of the interactable object's methods to change the data therein. The system can also include apparatus for playing a script, thereby executing selected data changing methods in specified data objects, and a means for generating a presentation of data in a data model object.

Method and apparatus for providing an object-oriented application

An object-oriented view system controls the display of screen graphics for a plurality of application programs, each of which generates graphical information for display in a window assigned to it. The view system has a system window manager which is common to all of the application programs and which defines application window areas on the display screen and corresponding application window storage areas in the display screen buffer. Each application program instantiates a view system object from class information in the computer operating system. Each view system object includes a view object with program code that directly stores screen display information generated by the application into the screen buffer. This arrangement allows the application programs to avoid the conventional 'bottleneck' that develops when all of the screen display information must be stored in the screen buffer by the common system window manager.

Oriented view system having a common window manager for defining

A view system provides support for applying matrix operations to one or more views to render a view in a more realistic manner. The matrix operations are applied in accordance with a predefined coordinate system for each application to generate the screen information for each application program. The view system applies the matrix operations to generate views appearing on the display, off the display and partially on and partially off the display. Furthermore, the system enables hierarchical linkage of views to enhance the correspondence between a view undergoing a transformation and proximal views.

Object-oriented view coordinate space system

An object-oriented view system which displays a plurality of separate view areas on a computer display screen allows hierarchically arranged overlapping view areas. The views are controlled by a view hierarchy object which includes a tree structure of information associated with every view. The tree structure has multiple branches and supports recursive view support for views within views. The views are drawn directly in the screen buffer by application programs which retrieve view definition information from the view hierarchy object. The view hierarchy makes it possible for views of uncertain origin or implementation to function polymorphically within a display hierarchy.

Object-oriented view hierarchy framework

An object-oriented user interface utilizes object-oriented controls that operate together and compartmentalize the response code in three separate objects. The first object is called an interactable object and is incorporated into the application program. The interactable object includes a displayable representation generically referred to as an icon and a number of methods for manipulating the icon display. The display itself is managed by a second object called a view object which is associated with the display screen. The view object monitors and tracks the position of the icons on the display screen. The view object and the interactable objects are coordinated by means of an interaction object which receives input messages and event signals generated by mouse movements, mouse button presses, keyboard key presses and position information generated by the view object. Based on a collective determination of all of the information, the interaction object invokes logic in the interactable objects to cause the objects to change the displayed information.

Object-oriented data access framework system

A view system provides an extensible mechanism for associating a logical set of windows and manipulating them as a unit. For example, operations can be applied across address spaces to all the members of the group. A group is constructed by inserting a reference to each view in the group in a layer object. The layer object, in turn, can be inserted into a data hierarchy structure in a hierarchy object. The data hierarchy structure defines front to back display levels on a display and defines which windows overlap. Since all the members of the group are in the same layer object, they move to different levels as a group. Polymorphism and extensibility are provided via the object-oriented architecture of the operating system.

Object-oriented viewing framework having view grouping

A view system is provided for each application program in a computer system in order to display application-generated information on a display. To increase graphic speed, the view system transfers graphic information directly into the screen buffer into a screen buffer area defined by a visible area definition. In order to handle concurrently-operating view systems, each of which modifies the displayed contents of one of the multiple views, a concurrency control controls access to the visible area definitions. The concurrency control is also used to control access to update requests which are generated when a change to one view affects other views. This mechanism supports animation, tracking feedback and updating invalid areas of the display by multiple threads of execution. This mechanism also provides a framework to support unrelated threads drawing in separate views within a single window.

Object-oriented multi-tasking view framework

A view system is provided for each application program in a computer system in order to display application-generated information on a display. To increase graphic speed, the view system transfers graphic information directly into the screen buffer into a screen buffer area defined by a visible area definition. The view system provides support for spatially laying out views. The support includes a class of objects that contain specific layout information. The layout information automatically provides horizontal or vertical orientation, size and constraints. The views are arranged in a hierarchy and the layout objects are inserted into the hierarchy at a level directly above the levels of the views to which the layout objects relate.

Object-oriented view layout system

A view system is provided for each application program in a computer system in order to display application-generated information on a display. To increase graphic speed, the view system transfers graphic information directly into the screen buffer into a screen buffer area defined by a visible area definition. Since the view system creates a view defined by the visible area definition, the view can be made non-rectilinear by providing a suitable definition. The visible area definition may define a visible area of any arbitrary two-dimensional shape, including, but not limited to, rectilinear, disjoint, elliptical, etc. This mechanism makes it possible to provide a single drawing canvas comprised of non-contiguous areas and enhances traditionally rectangular window systems because it allows windows to have any arbitrary two-dimensional shape.

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Debra L Orton