Centralized context menus and tooltips

• US 20070162898A1
• Filed: 01/11/2006
• Published: 07/12/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 01/11/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Ramani, Sundaram, Carter, Benjamin, Kilty, Brett
• Granted Patent: US 8,959,476 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/135
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

Various technologies and techniques improve the process for creating and displaying context menus and tooltips. Procedures for listening for events, enabling, retrieving and displaying context menus and tooltips reside in a central service model. The developer accesses the central service model and specifies content for a context menu or tooltip. Rich media content such as audio, video, and graphic output can be included in context menus and tooltips. Shapes and effects of displayed content can also be customized.

Claims

1. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:

providing a central service that is operable to process information messages for a plurality of applications, the information messages being selected from the group consisting of tooltips and context menus;

wherein the central service is operable to listen to a series of inputs to detect whether an event should be fired to determine if a content has been defined for a particular option in a particular application; and

wherein upon detecting that the event should be fired, if the central service determines the content has been defined for the particular option, the central service retrieves the content for the particular option and displays it on a user interface.

2. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the content is a tooltip.

3. The computer-readable medium of claim 2, wherein the tooltip includes additional information to describe the particular option.

4. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the content is a context menu.

5. The computer-readable medium of claim 4, wherein the context menu includes at least one action that can be taken based on a context of the particular option.

6. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the central service accesses code written by a developer to determine if content has been defined for the particular option.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, wherein the code written by the developer is in a text file.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 7, wherein the code in the text file is written in a text-based markup language.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the code written by the developer to access the central service has been compiled into a program executable.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein at least a portion of the content for the particular option is in an external file.

11. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the input is a mouse move action.

12. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the input is a right mouse up action.

13. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the input is a combination of a shift key and an F10 key.

14. The computer-readable medium of claim 1, wherein the content includes rich media content.

15. A method for providing rich media content for information messages comprising the steps of:

listening to a series of inputs and detecting that an event should be fired to retrieve content that has been defined for a particular option in a particular application, the content being selected from the group consisting of a tooltip and a context menu;

retrieving the content that has been defined for the particular option, the content including rich media; and

displaying the content on a user interface.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the rich media is selected from the group consisting of audio, video, hyperlinks, images, and other data.

17. The method of claim 15, wherein the content is displayed on the user interface in a content area having a shape selected from the group consisting of a rectangle, square, circle, oval, bubble, and other shapes.

18. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform the steps recited in claim 15.

19. A computer-readable medium having computer-executable instructions for causing a computer to perform steps comprising:

providing a central service that is operable to process tooltips and context menus for a plurality of applications;

wherein the central service is operable to listen to a series of inputs to detect whether an event should be fired to determine if content has been defined for a particular option in a particular application;

wherein upon detecting that the event should be fired, if the central service determines that the content for the particular option is a tooltip content, then the central service retrieves the tooltip content and displays it on a user interface as an information message to a user; and

wherein upon detecting that the event should be fired, if the central service determines that the content for the particular option is a context menu content, then the central service retrieves the context menu content and displays it on the user interface as at least one action that can be selected by the user based on a context of the particular option.

20. The computer-readable medium of claim 19, wherein the content includes rich media content.