International Business Machines Corporation

Mark A Farmer

David John Clark

Simon Edward Moore

Duncan J Lilly

Mark Gregory

Lee M Chase

Ian D Hancock

Paul Jonathan Englefield

Mark Justin Paul Tibbits

Daniel Onions

Associating user interface elements with information ancillary to said user interface elements includes creating one or more items of user interface element ancillary information, receiving a request for user interface element ancillary information, the request identifying the context in which the information is to be used, searching, using a processor, said one or more items of user interface element ancillary information for items matching the context in which the information is to be used, and returning one or more items of user interface element ancillary information matching the context in which the information is to be used.

Associating ancillary information with an application user interface

An image map Java Bean or ActiveX control has a display image property and a mapping image property. The mapping image comprises a plurality of regions colored from a pre-determined sequence of colors. When instantiated the image map displays the display image. The image map is, responsive to user interaction with the display image, to obtain a coordinate in the display image and to reading an index color of a corresponding coordinate in the mapping image. If the index color is from the pre-determined sequence of colors, the image map indicates user selection of a region of the display image by highlighting the region.

Image maps

Growing community of inventors

Warwick, United Kingdom

Mark A Farmer