USER-INTERFACE DESIGN

• US 20070180391A1
• Filed: 04/04/2007
• Published: 08/02/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 06/24/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Apple Inc.
• Original Assignee: Apple Computer Incorporated (Apple Inc.)
• Inventors: Ording, Bas, Graffagnino, Peter, ZIMMER, MARK
• Granted Patent: US 8,130,224 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0481 based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance

Abstract

Graphical user interface objects are specified by a collection of attribute-value pairs, the collection of which comprise a complete description of the object and may be used by a rendering element to create a visual representation of the object. In practice, each of a first portion of attributes may be associated with two or more values—each value (for a given attribute) specifying that attribute'"'"'s value for a unique resolution. A second portion of attributes are associated with a single value and are, therefore, display resolution independent. Accordingly, the target object may be displayed at any of the specified design display resolutions or accurately displayed at any resolution between the specified design display resolutions.

Claims

1. A method to display a graphical user interface object, comprising:

obtaining a plurality of values associated with a graphical user interface object, each of the values associated with a display characteristic of a graphical user interface object;

identifying a first one of the plurality of values as being associated with a first resolution of a first attribute of the graphical user interface object;

identifying a second one of the plurality of values as being associated with a second resolution of the first attribute of the graphical user interface object;

causing the graphical user interface object to be rendered by providing the plurality of values except the second value to a rendering engine through an application programming interface function.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the obtained plurality of values is associated with a display characteristic of the graphical user interface object that is independent of a display resolution.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of obtaining comprises obtaining the plurality of values from a hierarchically organized file.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of obtaining comprises obtaining the plurality of values from a flat file.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the graphical user interface object is selected from the group consisting of a pushbutton, a bevel button, a metal button, a disclosure button, a pop-up button, a combo button, a pull-down button, a check box, a radio button, a segmented control, a window title bar, a scroll bar track, a scroll bar thumb, a scrollbar cap, a slider track, a slider thumb, a text field, a progress bar, a progress indicator, a list box, a drawer, and a pane splitter.

6. The method of claim 1, wherein the act of causing is performed by an operating system level module.

7. A program storage device, readable by a programmable control device, comprising instructions stored thereon for causing the programmable control device to perform a method in accordance with any one of claims 1 through 6.