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Presentation manager

  • US 5,416,900 A
  • Filed: 03/23/1993
  • Issued: 05/16/1995
  • Est. Priority Date: 04/25/1991
  • Status: Expired due to Term
First Claim
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1. A method of managing a presentation for use with a computer having a display screen and a pointing device that controls the location of a pointer on said display screen said method comprising:

  • representing each page of a multi-page presentation, each of said pages defining a two-dimensional work area having contents that can be modified by a user when that page is displayed on said display screen;

    representing a plurality of graphical objects that form part of the contents of a selected page of said multi-page presentation, each of said plurality of graphical objects having associated therewith a user-specified size and a user-specified location on said selected page, said user-specified locations of said graphical object having an x-coordinate and a y-coordinate which are user-selectable within a two-dimensional range of coordinates, each of said graphical objects appearing on-said display screen as a corresponding graphical image when said selected page is displayed on said screen and the corresponding graphical image of each of said graphical objects disappearing from said display screen when said selected page is removed from said display screen;

    representing a container object that can be associated with said selected page, said container object having associated therewith a user-specified size and a user-specified location, said user-specified location of said container object being independent of said graphical objects and having an x-coordinate and a y-coordinate which are user-selectable within said two-dimensional range of coordinates, said container object having a set of user-specified visual characteristics associated therewith;

    capturing a selected one of said plurality of graphical objects when said pointer has been moved to a location that lies on or within the selected graphical object;

    dragging the captured graphical object to another location on said selected page;

    releasing the captured graphical object at the other location; and

    linking said released graphical object to said container object when said captured graphical object is released in said container object, wherein said linking step creates a link between said released graphical object and said container object and imposes the set of specified visual characteristics on said released graphical object, and when imposed on said released graphical object said set of specified visual characteristics dictates the visual appearance of the graphical image corresponding to the released graphical object.

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