International Business Machines Corporation

Mark Justin Paul Tibbits

Paul Jonathan Englefield

Raymond Trainer

Mark A Farmer

James Whiting

Daniel Onions

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

A set of software components, a system and a method provide to a user of a data processing system per-value interpretative information relating to application data values. The method includes the following steps: in response to user selection of a set of an application component's data values, generating per-value interpretation information corresponding to the selected data values; and, in response to subsequent movement of an input device pointer into a display screen area associated with a data value within the set, presenting the interpretation information to the user via an output device connected to the data processing system. A processing component selectable by the user from set of processing components preferably responds to user selection of both the operation to be performed and a set of application data by performing the processing operation on the set of data to produce a result, and then generating per-value interpretation information corresponding to that result. The presentation of interpretation information to the user preferably uses a flyover text box in a GUI, as is known in the art for application-specific Bubble Help.

Growing community of inventors

Leamington Spa, United Kingdom

Mark Justin Paul Tibbits