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. 23, 2000
Filed:
Mar. 03, 1998
Jeffrey Thomas Krauss, Bellevue, WA (US);
Ravindra Kumar Agrawal, Redmond, WA (US);
Microsoft Corporation, Redmond, WA (US);
Abstract
A Menu Building Component (MBC) builds menus during a computer's idle time. The MBC builds a menu for each menu title on a Menu Bar and stores each built menu in the computer's random access memory (RAM). The MBC requests an allocation of idle time by registering with a Component Manager. The Component Manager notifies the MBC of the availability of idle time by sending a notification signal to the MBC. When the MBC receives the notification signal, the MBC builds the next unbuilt menu corresponding to a menu title on the Menu Bar. When the last menu has been built, the MBC unregisters with the component manager. If a user makes a menu demand for an unbuilt menu, the MBC will build the demanded menu on demand, rather than during an idle time. If the user makes a menu demand for a built menu, the built menu is recalled from RAM and displayed for use by the user. Because the MBC builds menus during idle times, start-up delays and menu demand delays are minimized. By storing the built menus in RAM, the MBC can display menus instantaneously upon demand, with little or no delay perceivable to the user.