System and method for issuing a message to a program

• US 20030237049A1
• Filed: 06/25/2002
• Published: 12/25/2003
• Est. Priority Date: 06/25/2002
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Reynar, Jeffrey C., Jones, Brian M., Sawicki, Marcin, Tharp, Edward W.
• Granted Patent: US 7,716,676 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/234
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/542 Event management; Broadcasting; Multicasting; Notifications

Abstract

Described is a mechanism for issuing an event notification message, from a first program to a second program, to indicate that an action occurred within the first program, where the event notification message includes a parameter that indicates that the action is one of a group of possible actions. More specifically, in an application configured to edit documents created with the extensible Markup Language XML, the occurrence of an XML-related action causes the event notification message to be issued. The XML-related action may be either an XML-related move action, an XML-related insert action, or an XML-related delete action. In this way, a single event notification message can be used to indicate the occurrence of three different types of actions while editing an XML document.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium encoded with a data structure for issuing a message from a first program to a second program, the data structure comprising:

an identifier field indicating that the data structure represents an occurrence of an event related to an action performed on an XML document;

a first parameter field identifying a first XML node associated with the event;

a second parameter field identifying a second XML node associated with the event; and

a third parameter field identifying a type of event that occurred, the type of event being a selected one of a plurality of types of events.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the data structure further comprises:

a fourth parameter field identifying a current selection within the XML document.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the first XML node corresponds to a node within which the current selection existed when performance of the action began.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the second XML node corresponds to a node within which the current selection will exist after the action has been performed.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the first XML node corresponds to a node within which the current selection existed when performance of the action began and the second XML node corresponds to a node within which the current selection will exist after the action has been performed.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the plurality of types of events comprises an XML-related move action, an XML-related insert action, and an XML-related delete action.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the XML-related move action comprises moving a current selection from the first XML node to the second XML node.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the XML-related move action comprises moving a current selection from content that does not have an associated XML node to the second XML node.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the XML-related move action comprises moving a current selection from the first XML node to content that does not have an associated XML node.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the XML-related insert action comprises causing a current selection to be within the second XML node.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the XML-related delete action comprises deleting the first XML node such that a current selection that was within the first XML node becomes within the second XML node.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the data structure is configured to be passed from the first program to the second program when performance of the action is initiated.

13. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components, comprising:

a first program for editing a document that includes XML nodes, at least a plurality of the XML nodes including content, the first program being configured to issue a single event notification in response to an action being performed by the first program, the action being an identified one from a plurality of types of actions; and

a second program configured to receive the single event notification and to handle the single event notification with an event handler, the event handler including computer-executable instructions for responding to at least one of the plurality of types of actions.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the event handler includes computer-executable instructions for responding to each of the plurality of types of actions.

15. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the plurality of types of actions comprises an XML-related move action corresponding to moving a current selection from content that does not have an associated XML node to within an XML node.

16. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the plurality of types of actions comprises an XML-related move action corresponding to moving a current selection from within an XML node to content that does not have an associated XML node.

17. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the plurality of types of actions comprises an XML-related move action corresponding to moving a current selection from within one XML node to within another XML node.

18. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the plurality of types of actions comprises an XML-related insert action corresponding to inserting an XML node around content within the document.

19. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the plurality of types of actions comprises an XML-related delete action corresponding to deleting an XML node from the document.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 13, wherein the plurality of types of actions comprises an XML-related move action, an XML-related insert action, and an XML-related move action.

21. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable components, comprising:

a message means for indicating the occurrence of an event within an XML document editor, the message means comprising a plurality of parameters, a first parameter identifying a first XML node, a second parameter identifying a second XML node, and a third parameter identifying a type of event that occurred, the type of event being a selected one of a plurality of types of events.

22. The computer-readable medium of claim 21, wherein the plurality of types of events comprises an XML-related move event, and XML-related insert event, and an XML-related delete event.

23. The computer-readable medium of claim 22, wherein the XML-related move event comprises moving a selection from the first identified XML node to the second identified XML node.

24. The computer-readable medium of claim 23, wherein one of either the first identified XML node or the second identified XML node comprises a NULL node.

25. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for issuing a message from a first program to a second program, comprising:

issuing, from the first program to the second program, an event notification comprising a plurality of parameters, the event notification being indicative that an XML-related action occurred related to the first program, a first parameter identifying a first XML node associated with the XML-related action, a second parameter identifying a second XML node associated with the XML-related action, and a third parameter identifying one of a plurality of types of actions that corresponds to the XML-related action.

26. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for issuing a message from a first program to a second program, comprising:

receiving, by the second program from the first program, an event notification comprising a plurality of parameters, the event notification being indicative that an XML-related action occurred related to the first program, a first parameter identifying a first XML node associated with the XML-related action, a second parameter identifying a second XML node associated with the XML-related action, and a third parameter identifying one of a plurality of types of actions that corresponds to the XML-related action.