Method and system for designing a graphical user interface for an electronic consumer product

• US 6,215,488 B1
• Filed: 06/12/1998
• Issued: 04/10/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 07/15/1997
• Status: Expired due to Term

• Current Assignee: Uniloc 2017 LLC (FIG LLC (d/b/a Fortress Investment Group LLC))
• Original Assignee: US Philips Corporation (Koninklijke Philips N.V.)
• Inventors: Morselt, Frank Anton, Bloem, Gerrit-Jan
• Primary Examiner(s): Bayerl, Raymond J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Hailu, Tadesse
• Application Number:
  US09/096,698
• Time in Patent Office: 1,033 Days
• Field of Search: 345/334, 345/335, 345/336, 345/339, 345/333, 345/356
• US Class Current: 715/762
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: H04N 21/854 Content authoring

Abstract

A method and system for effectively and efficiently constructing a development environment for graphical user interfaces for an electronic consumer product. The basic aim of the invention tool is to automatically generate an interface in the authoring environment for customer specific target control components. This is done so by automatically creating a host platform control component (in the format of an OCX) from an existing target platform control component (in the format of a C header file). After running the invention once for every control component, a designer can then write on the host, for instance Visual Basic application code that performs calls to properties and methods of these generated control components.

Claims

1. A system for developing a graphical user interface comprising:

a. at least one target device comprising a target processor for maintaining an arrangement of graphical and control components, using a first computer language;

b. at east one host device comprising a host processor for maintaining a duplicate arrangement of duplicate graphical and control components, using a second computer language, different from the first computer language; and

c. means for linking the components and duplicate components and keeping them fully equivalent, the linking means comprising;

i. a compiler for compiling first component specification code from the first environment to the second computer language; and

ii. a procedure for generating second component specification code conversion from the second environment to the first computer language,

wherein the procedure for generating adds information lost during processing on the host.

2. A system as claimed in claim 1, whilst using a C header file for a interface of a control components in a software library.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the first computer language is C and the second computer language is visual basic.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the target device is a screen-based product.

5. A computer method for establishing a development environment for an application for a target processor, using a host processor, the method comprising:

maintaining a development platform on the host processor, using a first computer language;

maintaining a runtime platform on the target processor, using a second computer language, different from the first computer language;

coordinating the platforms so that application functions on both remain fully equivalent, including;

automatically compiling first code sets from the target processor to the host processor; and

automatically converting second code sets from the host processor to the target processor,

wherein the automatically converting comprises adding information lost during processing on the host.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the target processor is in a consumer product.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one of the first and second conmputer language is C.

8. The method of claim 5, wherein at least one of the first and second computer language is Visual Basic.