Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Marc Rene Keller

Zeke Koch

Howard L Cooperstein

Hannes Helmut Ruescher

Steven Adam Breinberg

Ronald Stephen Giesen

Kenneth Patrick Coleman

Aaron Weiss

Hiroya Chiba

A computing system for providing a user interface control to modify properties of items within a main application window. The computing system has a main application window, a gallery control window, a control object selection processing module, and a control object focus processing module. The main application window contains one or more application items, each application item having one or more control properties affecting a behavior of the application item. The gallery control window contains a list of one or more control objects for modifying control properties of the application items located within the main application window. Each of the control objects in the list of control objects includes a graphical icon having a selection portion and a properties portion and one or more control properties that affect one or more items within the main application window.

Gallery user interface controls

A computer-based method of sizing and positioning controls within a window is disclosed. The method divides a window, and in particular a dialog window, into rectangular regions, referred to as frames. A logical description of the relative positions and sizes of the controls and frames within the dialog window is specified. The method automatically determines the coordinates of each control and positions the controls accordingly during execution of the computer program that is displaying the dialog window. The method is performed in two stages: a specification stage and a layout stage. In the specification stage, a dialog window is subdivided into multiple nested rectangular frames. The set of frames for a dialog window forms a hierarchical tree of frames. In the layout stage, the method traverses the tree of frames twice. The first traversal of the frame tree occurs in postorder sequence, and determines the minimum required size of each frame. The second traversal of the tree occurs in preorder sequence, selectively expanding or repositioning frames within the available space. When the method completes the determination for the Leaf Frames, the final coordinates of each control are known. The method then sets the coordinates of each control accordingly.

Method for automatically laying out controls in a dialog window

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San Jose, CA, United States of America

Marc Rene Keller