Microsoft Technology Licensing, LLC

Russell S Johnson

Mark A Malamud

David A Barnes

Royce A Levien

Juha P Niemisto

David A Bolnick

Renee Marceau

Joyce A Grauman

Terri L Sorge

Daniel P Oran

Darrin N Hatakeda

Kevin Joseph Fischer

Kent Rogers Lowry

Anna Timasheva

Robert Wayne Coffen

Erik A Gavriluk

Ramakrishnan NataraJan

Rajeev S Misra

Howard W Cherry, Iv

John P O'Neill

J Alison Grauman

May May Quan

John L Dauphiny

A spreadsheet program directly publishes a data table or chart into an HTML document. The table or chart is published to a predefined location within the HTML document and a user is enabled to readily update the published table or chart to include changes made in the spreadsheet program by republishing the data table or chart. Furthermore, the published or republished data can be imported back into the parent spreadsheet program from the HTML document without loss of functionality or formatting that it had in the parent spreadsheet program. In addition, the data may be published in a form that can be used by ActiveX web components in order to provide spreadsheet functionality from within the browser application. A unique marker tag or identification tag within the HTML document indicates where the data table or chart has been inserted.

Publishing/republishing data tables in HTML documents while maintaining formatting and functionality for restoring back the data tables

A spreadsheet program saves data into a hypertext markup language (HTML) document that can be viewed with a browser program, but persists all of the information associated with that data necessary to maintain formatting and functionality of the data if reintroduced into the spreadsheet program. The HTML document can then be used both for displaying the data over the Internet or other network in a browser program, and also for opening the data in the spreadsheet program. The information necessary for preserving the format and functionality of the data in the spreadsheet program is incorporated into the HTML document using HTML, Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), and Extended Markup Language (XML). HTML is used for expressing cell data information that is displayed in the browser program, CSS are used for expressing cell-level properties of the data, and XML is used for expressing information that is not displayed in the browser program, but which is necessary for some functionality of the data when used in the spreadsheet program. If any formatting of the data are changed to enable display of the data in the browser program as displayed in the spreadsheet program, the original formatting information is retained in a supporting file that is ignored by a browser program.

Storage of application specific data in HTML

Manipulating an object that is dependent upon one or more cells in a spreadsheet is facilitated by manipulating indicators that bound the relevant cells. The object can be a spreadsheet cell formula that contains a reference to one or more cells. The object can also be a graph object that is dependent upon one or more cells. In response to the selection of one of the objects, an indicator is displayed proximate to the cell or cells that the object is dependent upon. If the selected object is dependent upon multiple ranges of cells, then multiple indicators are displayed. Each indicator is displayed proximate to a cell or range of cells for the purpose of highlighting or identifying that the object is dependent upon that cell or range of cells. The highlighting or identifying is acceptably achieved with on-screen indicators that are color-coded. Each indicator can border a cell or a range of cells that the object is dependent upon. Each indicator can be moved, expanded or contracted so that it includes a different cell or range of cells. The selected object is updated to be dependent upon the cells currently identified by the associated indicator or indicators.

On-screen indentification and manipulation of sources that an object

A system and method are described for presenting a continuously accessible computer system tool interface. The interface of the present invention comprises a separated applications section and system tray section. The applications section provides a portion of the graphic user interface for running applications programs. The tray section provides an alternative region of the graphic user interface for objects to surface their key features while occupying only a small portion of the display space. The tray section is supported by a Tray Object which provides a frame work for tray aware applications to dock.

Continuously accessible computer system interface

A method and system for grouping and manipulating windows in a window system is provided. In a preferred embodiment, a plurality of displayed windows are grouped into a project group. A project group has associated information regarding which windows belong to the project group, an associated project group appearance for differentiating the windows in the project group from other windows, and a set of project group commands for operating upon the project group. A window is designated as a project group folder, this window containing indicators to the other windows belonging to the project group. For each window belonging to the project group, project group commands are added to menus of the windows belonging to the project group. Later, when a window is activated and a project group command selected for operating upon the project group, certain behaviors occur. For example, when the project group command is a request to close the project group, the current state of each window in the project group is saved and each window is displayed according to the closed state of the window. Also, for example, when the project group command is a request to open the project group, then each window in the project group is displayed according to its previously saved state.

Method and system for grouping and manipulating windows

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Seattle, WA, United States of America

Russell S Johnson