Method and apparatus for managing a plurality of objects on a graphical user interface

• US 6,246,405 B1
• Filed: 06/06/1997
• Issued: 06/12/2001
• Est. Priority Date: 06/06/1997
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: Verizon Patent and Licensing Incorporated (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Original Assignee: MCI Communications Corporation (Verizon Communications Inc.)
• Inventors: Johnson, William J.
• Primary Examiner(s): Bayerl, Raymond J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): Nguyen, Cao H.
• Application Number:
  US08/870,510
• Time in Patent Office: 1,467 Days
• Field of Search: 345/335, 345/349, 345/329, 345/339, 345/337, 345/347, 345/333, 345/346, 345/348, 345/352
• US Class Current: 715/764
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

A system and method for managing a plurality of objects on a GUI to perform common and routine tasks. A windowed application program is provided that allows the user to define an object chain containing handles to application objects appearing on the user'"'"'s GUI. Each object chain is associated with a particular keystroke sequence which is selected by the user when defining the corresponding object chain. The user may toggle through many applications, and associated objects, by depressing the corresponding hot-key. A pointer in a chain table keeps track of the next application in the chain. The chain table can be temporary or permanent.

Claims

1. An apparatus for managing objects on a graphical user interface, comprising:

a memory configured to store instructions and a chain table containing one or more chain links, each chain link associating a user-specified invocation command to one or more object handles and one or more application objects; and

a processor configured to execute the instructions to receive an invocation command from a user, access the chain table to determine a chain link associated with the invocation command, invoke the one or more application objects in the determined chain link, and provide the one or more application objects to the user according to the associated one or more object handles.

2. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein each chain link further associates a user-specified invocation command with a descriptor.

3. The apparatus of claim 2 wherein the processor is further configured to:

provide a chain query window relating to the chain table, the chain query window providing the user a list of invocation commands and associated descriptors.

4. The apparatus of claim 3 wherein the processor is further configured to:

allow the user to at least one of add, delete, and modify the list of invocation commands and associated descriptors.

5. The apparatus of claim 1 wherein at least one of the user-specified invocation commands in the chain table corresponds to a keyboard keystroke.

6. A method for managing a plurality of application objects, comprising:

receiving an invocation command from a user;

assigning one or more user-specified application objects to the invocation command; and

generating a chain table, the chain table containing the invocation command and a pointer to each of the one or more user-specified application objects, the chain table allowing application objects to be invoked in any order.

7. The method of claim 6 wherein the chain table also contains at least one object handle for each of the one or more user-specified application objects, each object handle pointing to attributes of the corresponding user-specified application object.

8. A computer-readable medium having a data structure comprising:

a command invocation field that stores a command for invoking one or more application objects;

a next chained object field that stores a pointer to a next application object to be focused; and

one or more object handle fields that store pointers to attributes of an associated application object.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 8 wherein the data structure further comprises:

a description field that stores a description of the one or more application objects invoked by the command in the command invocation field.