International Business Machines Corporation

Roger Spall

Phillip J Beaudet

Eduardus A Merks

Jonathan William Edwards

Matthew Black

Julian Jones

Martin Rendall

A control window for navigating and implementing menu selections in a multiple level hierarchical menu is provided having a first zone displaying a list of the selection levels and a second zone displaying a list of the selection options within a selection level. The second zone is refreshed with selections for another selection level in the menu hierarchy in response to a user implementation or registration of a selection option at the originally displayed selection level. Preset default settings in all selection levels permit the user to implement a 'fast path' hierarchical menu selection.

Dynamic hierarchical selection menu

A user interface system is used for accessing and performing window management operations. A control window containing icons linked to product windows. Each icon in the control window is also capable of projecting a miniature window dynamically linked in terms of content and parameters to the actual information represented by the icon. Window management operations, such as moving, sizing, restoring, and closing, performed on either the iconic or miniature window representations in the control window are transmitted directly to the contents of the represented windows and implemented, whether these windows are opened or closed at the time that the operations are performed.

Window management system with a hierarchical iconic array and miniature

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North York, Canada

Roger Spall