Determining the locations of the contents of bordered areas of a generic form
First Claim
1. A method in a computer system for dynamically placing contents within a bordered area of a generic form, said generic form characterized as a two-dimensional space partitioned into a plurality of said bordered areas, each of said bordered areas having top, bottom, left, and right boundary locations, each of said bordered areas included in a nonoverlapping manner within a larger bordered area of said generic form, if any, and said contents of each of said bordered areas comprising one or more nonoverlapping smaller bordered areas or text, said text comprising none, one, or more lines of characters, whereby a hierarchial structure of said bordered areas of said generic form is established by said computer system, said method for dynamically placing said contents of said bordered area comprising the steps of:
- obtaining said locations of said top, bottom, left, and right boundaries of said bordered area,determining whether said contents of said bordered area includes said one or more smaller bordered areas or said text,if said contents of said bordered area includes said text, determining whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area, and placing said text within said bordered area taking into account whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area,if said contents of said bordered area includes said smaller bordered areas, determining whether said included smaller bordered areas are arranged wtihin said bordered area horizontally or vertically,if said included smaller bordered areas are horizontally arranged, determining the location of said left and right boundaries for each of said included smaller bordered areas and placing said left and said right boundaries of said included smaller bordered areas at said determined locations, placing said top boundary for each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said top boundary of said bordered area and placing said bottom boundary for each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said bottom boundary of said bordered area,if said included smaller bordered areas are vertically arranged, determining the location of said top and said bottom boundaries for each of said included smaller bordered areas and placing said top and said bottom boundaries of said included smaller bordered areas at said determined locations, placing said left boundary of each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said left boundary of said bordered area and placing said right boundary of each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said right boundary of said bordered area.
1 Assignment
0 Petitions
Accused Products
Abstract
An apparatus and method for incorporating a topological two-dimensional partitioning procedure for dynamically creating, revising, storing, displaying and printing generic forms. The generic form contains a plurality of bordered areas. Each of the bordered areas may be included within a larger bordered area, and each of the bordered areas may contain a plurality of nonoverlapping smaller bordered areas, text or graphics. The text includes none, one or more lines of characters and the smaller bordered areas are arranged either vertically or horizontally with relation to each other. The invention includes a strategy for determining the location of the contents of the boardered areas.
43 Citations
58 Claims
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1. A method in a computer system for dynamically placing contents within a bordered area of a generic form, said generic form characterized as a two-dimensional space partitioned into a plurality of said bordered areas, each of said bordered areas having top, bottom, left, and right boundary locations, each of said bordered areas included in a nonoverlapping manner within a larger bordered area of said generic form, if any, and said contents of each of said bordered areas comprising one or more nonoverlapping smaller bordered areas or text, said text comprising none, one, or more lines of characters, whereby a hierarchial structure of said bordered areas of said generic form is established by said computer system, said method for dynamically placing said contents of said bordered area comprising the steps of:
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obtaining said locations of said top, bottom, left, and right boundaries of said bordered area, determining whether said contents of said bordered area includes said one or more smaller bordered areas or said text, if said contents of said bordered area includes said text, determining whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area, and placing said text within said bordered area taking into account whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area, if said contents of said bordered area includes said smaller bordered areas, determining whether said included smaller bordered areas are arranged wtihin said bordered area horizontally or vertically, if said included smaller bordered areas are horizontally arranged, determining the location of said left and right boundaries for each of said included smaller bordered areas and placing said left and said right boundaries of said included smaller bordered areas at said determined locations, placing said top boundary for each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said top boundary of said bordered area and placing said bottom boundary for each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said bottom boundary of said bordered area, if said included smaller bordered areas are vertically arranged, determining the location of said top and said bottom boundaries for each of said included smaller bordered areas and placing said top and said bottom boundaries of said included smaller bordered areas at said determined locations, placing said left boundary of each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said left boundary of said bordered area and placing said right boundary of each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said right boundary of said bordered area. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26)
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27. An apparatus in a computer system for dynamically placing contents within a bordered area of a generic form, said generic form characterized as a two-dimensional space partitioned into a plurality of bordered areas, said bordered area having top, bottom, left, and right boundary locations, each of said bordered areas included in a nonoverlapping manner within a larger bordered area of said generic form, if any, and said contents of each of said bordered area comprising one or more nonoverlapping smaller bordered areas or text, said text comprising none, one, or more lines of characters, whereby a hierarchial structure of said bordered areas of said generic form is established by said computer system, said apparatus for dynamically placing said contents of said bordered area comprising:
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means for obtaining said locations of said top, bottom, left, and right boundaries of said bordered area, means for determining whether said contents of said bordered area includes said one or more smaller bordered areas or said text, if said contents of said bordered area includes said text, means for determining whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area, and means for placing said text within said bordered area taking into account whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area, if said contents of said bordered area includes said smaller bordered areas, means for determining whether said included smaller bordered areas are arranged within said bordered area horizontally or vertically, means for determining the location of said left and said right boundaries for each of sid included smaller bordered areas and for placing said left and said right boundaries of said included smaller bordered area at said determined locations, means for placing said top boundary for each of sid included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said top boundary of said bordered area and means for placing said bottom boundary for each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said bottom boundary of said bordered area, means for determining the location of said top and said bottom boundaries for each of said included smaller bordered areas and means for placing said top and said bottom boundaries of sid included smaller bordered area at said determined location, means for placing said left boundary of each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said left boundary of said bordered area and means for placing said right boundary of each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said right boundary of said bordered area. - View Dependent Claims (28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52)
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53. A method in a computer system for dynamically adjusting locations of contents within a bordered area of a generic form, said generic form characterized as a two-dimensional space partitioned into a plurality of said bordered areas, each of said bordered areas having top, bottom, left, and right boundary locations, and said contents within each of said bordered areas comprising one or more smaller bordered areas or text, said text comprising none, one, or more lines of characters, said method comprising the steps of:
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(1) establishing a hierarchial structure including a top level bordered area and one or more lower level bordered areas, each of said one or more lower level bordered areas being one of said smaller bordered areas associated with a higher level bordered area, (2) one by one, from said top level bordered area through said one or more lower level bordered areas of said hierarchial structure, obtaining said locations of said top, bottom, left, and right boundaries of each of said bordered areas, (3) determining said locations of said contents of each of said bordered areas whose boundary locations have just been obtained, (4) placing said contents of each of said bordered areas in accordance to said determined locations of said contents, and (5) repeat steps (2) through (4) until said locations of all of said smaller bordered areas and texts are adjusted. - View Dependent Claims (54, 55)
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56. An apparatus in a computer system for dynamically placing contents within a bordered area of a generic form, said generic form characterized as a two-dimensional space partitioned into a plurality of said bordered areas, each of said bordered areas having top, bottom, left, and right boundary locations, and said contents within each of said bordered areas comprising one or more smaller bordered areas or text, said text comprising none, one, or more lines of characters, said apparatus comprising:
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means for establishing a predetermined relationship between said plurality of said bordered areas such that said computer system can establish a sequence to search each of said bordered areas in accordance with said predetermined relationship, means for obtaining said locations of said top, bottom, left, and right boundaries of each of said bordered areas in said sequence, means for determining said locations of said contents of said bordered area whose boundary locations have been obtained, means for placing said contents of said bordered area according to said determined locations of said contents. - View Dependent Claims (57)
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58. A method in a computer system for dynamically adjusting locations of contents within a bordered area of a generic form in response to changes of said generic form, said generic form characterized as a two-dimensional space partitioned into a plurality of said bordered areas, each of said bordered areas having top, bottom, left, and right boundary locations, and said contents within each of said bordered areas comprising one or more smaller bordered areas or text, said text comprising none, one, or more lines of characters, said method comprising the steps of:
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(1) establishing a hierarchial structure of said form, said hierarchial structure including a top level bordered area and one or more lower levels bordered areas, each of said one or more lower level bordered areas being one of said smaller bordered areas associated with a higher level bordered area, (2) one by one, from said top level bordered area through said one or more lower level bordered areas of said hierarchial structure, obtaining, automatically, said locations of said top, bottom, left, and right boundaries of each of said bordered areas, (3) determining whether said contents of said bordered area including said smaller bordered areas or said text, if said location of said boundaries of a bordered area is obtained, (4) if said contents of said bordered area including said text, determining whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area, and placing said text within said bordered area taking into account whether said text is aligned to said top or said bottom boundary of said bordered area, (5) if said contents of said bordered area including said smaller bordered areas, determining whether said included smaller bordered areas are arranged within said bordered area horizontally or vertically, (6) if said included smaller bordered areas are horizontally arranged, determining the location of said left and right boundaries for each of said included smaller border areas and placing said left and said right boundaries of said included smaller bordered areas at said determined locations, placing said top boundary for each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said to boundary of said bordered area and placing said bottom boundary of said bordered area and placing said bottom boundary for each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said bottom boundary of said bordered area, (7) if said included smaller bordered areas are vertically arranged, determine the location of said top and said bottom boundaries for each of said included smaller bordered areas and placing said top and said bottom boundaries of said included smaller bordered areas at said determined locations, placing said left boundary of each of said included smaller bordered areas so as to be aligned to said left boundary of said bordered area and placing said right boundary of each of said included smaller bordered area so as to be aligned to said right boundary of sid bordered area, and (8) repeat steps (2) through (7) until said locations of all of said smaller bordered areas and texts are adjusted.
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Specification