The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
May. 06, 1997
Filed:
Mar. 04, 1996
Daniel K Clifford, Palo Alto, CA (US);
Timothy J Craycroft, Mountian View, CA (US);
Apple Computer, Inc., Cupertino, CA (US);
Abstract
Explicit support is provided at the system software level for application program tear-off menus in a manner that is essentially application-transparent. All menus are transformed into windows and grouped in a single menu layer for each application, greatly simplifying many of the complexities of navigating through hierarchical and tear-off menus. Each application has its own menu layer that is shown and hidden as the application moves to the foreground and background. Tear-off menus, as with all menus, are hidden and shown with the menu layer, generating the desirable 'floating-window' behavior. More particularly, menus are managed in a graphical, event-driven computer system having a computer display by representing the menus as windows, providing a menu layer for containing menus of a computer program, and displaying a menu. Events occurring with respect to the menu layer are detected, in response to which display of the menu is varied.