Editing and reflecting color display attributes of non-active profiles

• US 4,648,046 A
• Filed: 10/24/1984
• Issued: 03/03/1987
• Est. Priority Date: 10/24/1984
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Copenhaver, Diane B., Devany, E. Paul, Hedgemon, LaBrose
• Primary Examiner(s): Gruber, Felix D.
• Application Number:
  US06/664,179
• Time in Patent Office: 860 Days
• Field of Search: 364/200, 364/900, 364/518, 364/521, 364/300, 340/701, 340/703, 340/709, 340/747
• US Class Current: 345/589
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04897 Special input arrangements or commands for improving display capability
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/106 Display of layout of documents; Previewing
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/33 Intelligent editors

Abstract

In a computer system in which a plurality of user profiles exist which contain specifications relative to a variety of parameters, the capability is provided to access and edit a profile other than the one which is presently active for the system. While all other specifications of the active profile are honored during editing of a non-active profile, the color specifications of the non-active profile are honored during editing of the color attributes portion of the non-active profile. Then, upon leaving the editing of color attributes of the non-active profile, the color attributes of the active profile are again honored for the remainder of the profile editing session.

Claims

1. A method of altering workstation specifications in a profile stored for a computer system including a color display device, comprising:

reading said stored profile into a data memory of said system;

editing workstation specifications in said profile as a non-active profile while said computer system is controlled by another active profile residing in a control memory of said system; and

controlling color specifications for said display device with color attributes of said non-active profile only during editing of said color specifications of said non-active profile, whereby other edited workstation specifications cause no changes to said system operation while said non-active profile is edited.

2. The method of claim 1 further comprising:

establishing a pointer to provide a memory address for a portion of said memory at which is stored a color profile containing color specifications under which said display device operates.

3. The method of claim 2 further comprising:

copying an active color profile from said active profile into a first buffer.

4. The method of claim 3 further comprising:

copying a non-active color profile from said non-active profile into a second buffer.

5. The method of claim 4 further comprising:

setting said pointer to point to said second buffer during editing of color specifications of said non-active profile and to point to said first buffer during editing of other specifications in said non-active profile.

6. The method of claim 5 further comprising:

immediately updating the contents of said second buffer during editing of said non-active profile, whereby color changes are immediately reflected to an operator during editing of color specifications of said non active profile.

7. The method of claim 6 further comprising:

saving in said memory the original color attributes of said non-active profile.

8. The method of claim 7 further comprising:

overwriting said original color attributes of said non-active profile with said updated contents of said second buffer in response to an operator decision to save said color changes.

9. The method of claim 8 further comprising:

recording on a storage device said non-active profile after said non-active profile has been overwritten with said color changes.