Unified hierarchical and tear off menus in a graphical event-driven computer system
First Claim
1. For use in a graphical, event-driven computer system having a computer display, a method of managing a plurality of menus of an application program, comprising the steps of:
- representing each menu of the plurality of menus as a menu window co-extensive with said menu;
providing a display layer of related windows, said display layer being a menu window layer for containing each said menu window;
detecting a first event occurring with respect to the menu window layer;
in response to said first event, opening a menu window and displaying therein a corresponding menu;
detecting a second event occurring with respect to the menu layer; and
in response to said second event, varying display of the menu window.
1 Assignment
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Accused Products
Abstract
Explicit support is provided at the system software level for application program tear-off menus in a manner that is essentially application-transparent. All menus are transformed into windows and grouped in a single menu layer for each application, greatly simplifying many of the complexities of navigating through hierarchical and tear-off menus. Each application has its own menu layer that is shown and hidden as the application moves to the foreground and background. Tear-off menus, as with all menus, are hidden and shown with the menu layer, generating the desirable "floating-window" behavior. More particularly, menus are managed in a graphical, event-driven computer system having a computer display by representing the menus as windows, providing a menu layer for containing menus of a computer program, and displaying a menu. Events occurring with respect to the menu layer are detected, in response to which display of the menu is varied.
112 Citations
10 Claims
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1. For use in a graphical, event-driven computer system having a computer display, a method of managing a plurality of menus of an application program, comprising the steps of:
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representing each menu of the plurality of menus as a menu window co-extensive with said menu; providing a display layer of related windows, said display layer being a menu window layer for containing each said menu window; detecting a first event occurring with respect to the menu window layer; in response to said first event, opening a menu window and displaying therein a corresponding menu; detecting a second event occurring with respect to the menu layer; and in response to said second event, varying display of the menu window. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9)
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10. For use in a graphical, event-driven computer system having a computer display, a computer-readable medium containing menu manager software including computer instructions for:
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representing each of the menus of an application program, including both hierarchical menus and tear-off menus, as a menu window co-extensive with said menu; providing a menu window layer for containing each said menu window; providing a menu stack; providing a tear-off menu list; and realizing an event handling mechanism for detecting events occurring with respect to the menu layer, for adding menu identifiers to and removing menu identifiers from the menu stack in response to predetermined events occurring with respect to the menu layer, and for adding tear-off menu identifiers to and removing tear-off menu identifiers from the tear-off menu list in response to other predetermined events occurring with respect to the menu layer.
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Specification