International Business Machines Corporation

Jennifer L Pinkus

Jeffrey Joseph Buxton

Margaret Mary O'Connell

Hanna Russo

Jonathan P Booth

Manuel A Balderas

Mark H Jacober

Douglas J Wilson

Charles E Grindel

The present invention provides a virtual Reusable Asset Specification (RAS) repository. A method in accordance with an embodiment of the present invention includes: providing RAS assets for each different lifecycle phase of a software asset; and linking the RAS assets together using RAS related-assets.

Virtual RAS repository

A mechanism for generating customized graphical user interfaces for applications in an object-oriented environment is disclosed. Such applications may comprise Java beans, applets or components. The graphic user interface comprises a visual user interface, e.g. an action bar which contain a set of buttons and menus as well as a set of widget and property/command panels, as well as a communication interface through which configuration and user responses are exchanged with the applications. The relationship between the graphic user interface and an applet is based on the applet communicating selection and user interface information to the graphic user interface, and the graphic user interface handling the user gestures by calling methods on specific interfaces of the applet. Communications between the graphic user interface and applets occur over an information bus architecture referred to as the InfoBus.

Infocenter user interface for applets and components

A help demonstration player program is provided which accepts a set of commands in the form of a script input and generates simulated keystrokes and mouse events. The keystrokes and mouse events are provided to the application program which then operates as if the user had generated the keystrokes and mouse events. The sequence of keystrokes and mouse events directs the application software to perform a task one step at a time. Since the task starts with the user's customized screen and detects and responds to the state of the user's desktop through the demonstration, the resulting animated display is tailored to the user's actual display, presenting much more meaningful and less confusing instructions to the user. The demonstration player creates sample data so that the user's actual data is not corrupted during the playing of the explanatory sequence and user control over the keyboard and mouse is disabled to prevent the user from interfering with the demonstration. The text from conventional help screens may also be displayed on the screen during the demonstration in order to further assist the user.

Method and apparatus for generating animated help demonstrations

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Milton, MA, United States of America

Jennifer L Pinkus