Hewlett-packard Company

Jonathan A Weiner

Peter Michael Williams

Brian W McBride

Simon J Form

Ralph L Carpenter

Edmund F Davies

An object based data processing system comprising a plurality of storage domains arranged so that a semantic object in a second storage domain can be accessed by the user of a first storage domain by the creation of a new presentation object in the first storage domain which is linked via a transient communication link to the semantic object in the second storage domain. Each storage domain includes a global object into which the user of the storage domain can place objects to be made accessible to other storage domains and a distributed object containing the global objects of all other storage domains. By opening a distributed object in any storage domain, the user is given access to the global objects of other storage domains, including those of other users.

Distributed object based systems for communicating object data among

Apparatus and method for selecting entries within a plurality of entries. The preferred embodiment of the invention includes a search control processor which causes an edit box and a list box to be displayed on a display. In the list box is displayed a subset of entries from a plurality of entries. As letters are typed on a keyboard, the letters are displayed in the edit box. The search control processor causes a first entry from the plurality of entries to be highlighted when the first letter(s) of the first entry match the letters displayed in the edit box and when the first entry is in alphabetical order before any other entry from the plurality of entries whose first letter(s) match the letter(s) displayed in the edit box. When a user presses 'ENTER' or some other designated key on the keyboard the search control processor selects the entry highlighted on the screen. Since often the list box is not sufficiently large to display all entries in the plurality of entries, when the first entry whose first letter(s) match the letters in the edit box is not displayed, the search control processor will cause the list box to scroll so that the first entry is displayed.

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Palo Alto, CA, United States of America

Jonathan A Weiner