MULTIPLE CONDITIONAL FORMATTING

• US 20100122152A1
• Filed: 11/13/2009
• Published: 05/13/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 01/23/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Vigesaa, Eric B., Jones, Bruce Cordell, Chamberlain, Benjamin C., Street, Christopher M.
• Granted Patent: US 8,713,422 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/220
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/103 Formatting, i.e. changing of presentation of documents automatic justification G06F40/189; automatic line break hyphenation G06F40/191
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/18 of spreadsheets form-filling G06F40/174

Abstract

Generally described, embodiments of the present invention relate to applying and evaluating conditional formatting rules to a given range of cells. Additionally, multiple conditional formatting rules may be evaluated to TRUE for the same cell contained in a user interface and multiple formats applied to that cell.

Claims

1. A method for evaluating a plurality of conditional formatting rules applied to a user interface, the method comprising:

identifying first and second conditional formatting rules for evaluation;

identifying a cell contained in the user interface associated with the first and second conditional formatting rules;

determining with the computing device if the first and second conditional formatting rules are satisfied for the cell; and

if determined that the first and second conditional formatting rules are satisfied, applying a first formatting and a second formatting to the cell, wherein the first formatting is different from the second formatting.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

determining if the first conditional formatting rule includes an indication that no additional evaluations should be completed for the cell.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the first and second conditional formatting rules are applied on a sheet basis.

4. The method of claim 1, wherein the first conditional formatting rule is evaluated for a first set of cells within the sheet and the second conditional formatting rule is evaluated for a second set of cells within the sheet.

5. The method of claim 1, wherein the first conditional formatting rule is evaluated for a first set of cells within the sheet and the second conditional formatting rule is also evaluated for the first set of cells within the sheet.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein when the first conditional formatting rule is evaluated as TRUE for a first cell within the first set of cells, a first formatting type is applied to the first cell;

and wherein when the second conditional formatting rule is evaluated as TRUE for the first cell within the first set of cells, a second formatting type is also applied to the first cell.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the first formatting is of a first formatting type, and the second formatting is of a second formatting type, and wherein the first formatting type is different than the second formatting type.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein each conditional formatting rule is associated with a priority, and wherein the user interface is configured to receive inputs from a user to modify the priorities of the plurality of conditional formatting rules.

9. The method of claim 1, wherein the second formatting is applied only if the second formatting does not conflict with the first formatting.

10. A computer-readable storage medium having computer executable components for applying and evaluating multiple conditional formatting rules, comprising:

a conditional formatting rules control component operable by a computing device to assign priority ranks to first and second conditional formatting rules;

a conditional formatting rules evaluation component operable by the computing device to evaluate the first and second conditional formatting rules for a cell of a user interface; and

a formatting resolution component operable by the computing device to determine whether a first formatting, a second formatting, or both the first formatting and the second formatting should be applied to the cell based on the priority ranks and the evaluation of the first and second conditional formatting rules.

11. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the formatting resolution component applies the first formatting if the first conditional formatting rule is determined to have a higher priority rank than the second conditional formatting rule.

12. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the conditional formatting rules evaluation component identifies the cell within a range of cells associated with the first conditional formatting rule and determines if the conditional formatting rule should be evaluated for the cell.

13. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the formatting resolution component is operable by the computing device to determine if a one of the first and second conditional formatting rules having a higher priority rank includes an indication that no additional evaluations should be completed for the cell.

14. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 13, wherein the formatting resolution component is further operable by the computing device to apply only formatting associated with the one of the first and second conditional formatting rules having a higher priority rank if the indication that no additional evaluations should be completed for the cell is included.

15. The computer-readable storage medium of claim 10, wherein the conditional formatting rules evaluation component is configured to evaluate more than two conditional formatting rules.

16. A method for evaluating a plurality of conditional formatting rules applied to a user interface, the method comprising:

identifying first and second conditional formatting rules for evaluation, wherein the first conditional formatting rule is assigned a first priority and is associated with a first formatting, wherein the second conditional formatting rule is assigned a second priority and is associated with a second formatting, and wherein the first priority is greater than the second priority;

identifying a cell contained in the user interface, the cell being associated with the first and second conditional formatting rules;

determining with a computing device whether both of the first and second conditional formatting rules are satisfied for the cell;

if both are satisfied, determining with the computing device whether formatting associated with the first and second conditional formatting rules conflict;

if the formatting does not conflict, applying the first and second formatting to the cell; and

if the formatting does conflict, applying only the first formatting to the cell.

17. The method of claim 16, wherein determining whether formatting conflicts comprises determining if the formatting types of the first and second conditional formatting rules are the same, and if so, determining that the formatting does conflict.

18. The method of claim 16, further comprising determining that the first conditional formatting rule has a highest priority of the plurality of conditional formatting rules.

19. The method of claim 16, wherein the first conditional formatting rule includes a first condition type and a first parameter, and wherein the second conditional formatting rule includes a second condition type and a second parameter.

20. The method of claim 16, further comprising determining whether the first and second conditional formatting rules should both be evaluated for the cell before determining whether the first and second conditional formatting rules are satisfied.