International Business Machines Corporation

Douglas Robert Petty

Robert Thomas Uthe

Kathryn Heninger Britton

Samar Choudhary

Vijay Pandiarajan

Joseph A Bohn

Jason Robert McGee

Christopher Creighton Mitchell

John William Sweitzer

Shikha Srivastava

Carol Ann Jones

Donald Francis Ferguson

Elizabeth A Schreiber

Richard Adam King

Timothy G Shortley

Brian John Cragun

Velda Bartek

Scott Anthony Sylvester

Joseph Laurence Saunders

Gary Thomas Barta

Carl Steven Swanson

Brock K Brogan

Racecar bobble novelty

A task-like user interface is provided for Web-based applications. Preferred embodiments enable users to initiate multiple instances of tasks within a single Web application, where independent state information is retained for each instance. Each user-initiated task also has a prescribed life cycle with a definite start and end. Resources allocated to perform various activities can therefore be released when the activity ends. Optionally, contextual information can be passed to a task upon invocation. Support for persisting a currently-viewable work unit as a user-selectable favorite may optionally be provided.

User task interface in a web application

Content aggregation is used to build administration consoles. Preferred embodiments enable providing a solution-based approach to information technology ('IT') administration, whereby content can be flexibly arranged to provide a content view that is adapted for the IT solution deployed in a particular IT environment. In preferred embodiments, portal technology is used for the aggregation framework, and portlets are used for creating content. Alternatively, other approaches such as struts and tiles may be used. Preferred embodiments deploy an administration console as a Web-accessible application, and this console consolidates the administration interfaces for an arbitrary set of management operations, including administration of an arbitrary collection of hardware and/or software resources. Roles/permissions may be used when rendering content for the console, thereby customizing a view to individual end users (or user groups).

Using content aggregation to build administration consoles

A method and computer program product are provided for graphical user interface (GUI) organization control for extending GUI applications. An initial tabbed dialog is processed. Each page to be added to the initial tabbed dialog is identified. A location is identified for each identified added page to the initial tabbed dialog. A modified tabbed dialog including each added page at the respective identified location is displayed. A user selected position setting can be used to identify a location for each identified added page to the initial tabbed dialog. This position setting can be based upon a priority or a usage value. Also, a drag and drop routine can be used to identify a location for each identified added page to the initial tabbed dialog.

Method and computer program product for graphical user interface (GUI) organization control for extending GUI applications

A specification language allows a user to define platform-independent user interface panels without detailed knowledge of complex computer programming languages. The specification language is referred to herein as a Panel Definition Markup Language (PDML), which defines tags that are used in similar fashion to those defined in Hypertext Markup Language (HTML), that allow a user to specify the exact location of components displayed in the panel. A graphical editor allows the creation and modification of platform-independent user interface panels without programming directly in the specification language. A conversion tool may be used to convert platform-specific user interface panels to corresponding platform-independent user interface panels. A help generator tool also facilitates the generation of context-sensitive help for a user interface panel.

Specification language for defining user interface panels that are platform-independent

Growing community of inventors

Rochester, MN, United States of America

Douglas Robert Petty