Automatically binding and populating a selection control with both display labels and identification values

• US 20070256052A1
• Filed: 04/26/2006
• Published: 11/01/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 04/26/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Zhang, Jianjun, Xu, Li
• Granted Patent: US 7,552,129 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/110
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces

Abstract

A method, system and computer-usable medium are presented for binding multi-value data structures to a selection control in one single action, where one of the multi-value data structures is for identification values and the other multi-value data structure is for labels. In one embodiment, the method includes the steps of predictively determining that a data structure is either an identifier value or a label; and simultaneously associating a predictively determined identifier value and a predictively determined label with a widget in an editor pane in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

Claims

1. A computer-implementable method comprising:

predictively determining that a data structure is either an identifier value or a label; and

simultaneously associating a predictively determined identifier value and a predictively determined label with a widget in an editor pane in an Integrated Development Environment (IDE).

2. The computer-implementable method of claim 1, wherein the identifier value is predictively determined by examining a suffix in a name of the data structure.

3. The computer-implementable method of claim 2, wherein the data structure is determined to be an identifier value if the suffix is from a group composed of “

CODE”

, “

ID” and

“

VALUE.”

4. The computer-implementable method of claim 1, wherein the data structure is predictively determined as being either an identifier value or a label by consulting a local look-up table containing recently used data structures that have been identified and recorded in the look-up table as being either an identifier value or a label.

5. A computer-implementable method comprising:

simultaneously dropping two multi-valued data definitions into a widget in an editor pane of an Integrated Development Environment.

6. A computer-implementable method comprising:

drag-and-dropping two data structures from a data tree into a widget, wherein the data tree is displayed in a data pane of an Integrated Development Environment (IDE), and wherein the widget is displayed in an editor pane in the IDE;

in response to determining that the widget is list-bindable, that there are exactly two data structures, and that both data structures are multi-valued, predictively determining that one of the data structures is an identifier value and another of the data structures is a label; and

binding the two data structures to the widget only if one of the data structures is determined to be an identifier value and another of the data structures is determined to be a label.

7. The computer-implementable method of claim 6, further comprising:

in response to determining that both of the two data structures have been incorrectly described as being either an identifier value or a label, switching identifier value and label descriptors between the two data structures before binding the two data structures to the widget.

8. The computer-implementable method of claim 6, wherein the step of predictively determining that one of the data structures is an identifier value and another of the data structures is a label comprises the step of:

determining if one of the data structures is a string list and another of the data structures is a non-string list, wherein if one of the data structures is a string list and another of the data structures is a non-string list, then determining that a string list data structure is a label and a non-string list data structure is an identifier value.

9. The computer-implementable method of claim 8, wherein the step of predictively determining that one of the data structures is an identifier value and another of the data structures is a label comprises the step of:

determining if one of the data structures is a numeric list and another of the data structures is a non-numeric list, wherein if one of the data structures is a numeric list and another of the data structures is a non-numeric list, then determining that a numeric list data structure is an identifier value and a non-numeric list data structure is a label.

10. The computer-implementable method of claim 9, wherein the step of predictively determining that one of the data structures is an identifier value and another of the data structures is a label comprises the step of:

in response to determining that object names of the data structures are indicative of whether a data structure is an identifier value or a label, describing and identifying the data structures according to the object names of the data structures.

11. The computer-implementable method of claim 10, wherein the step of predictively determining that one of the data structures is an identifier value and another of the data structures is a label comprises the step of:

in response to determining that either of the data structures have been used and have been identified and recorded in a look-up table as being either an identifier value or a label, describing and identifying the data structures according to entries in the look-up table.

12. The computer-implementable method of claim 11, wherein if the look-up table is not accessible, then randomly describing and identifying the data structures as being either an identifier value or a label.