Component based design time architecture

• US 7,676,787 B2
• Filed: 03/09/2005
• Issued: 03/09/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 02/20/2001
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Pepin, Brian K.
• Primary Examiner(s): Kendall; Chuck O
• Application Number:
  US11/076,146
• Publication Number:
  US 20050160400A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,826 Days
• Field of Search: None
• US Class Current: 717/105
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/36 Software reuse
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/41 Compilation

Abstract

The invention includes an architecture in which components associate their design time functionality independent of a design tool. The design time functionality includes code generators, compilers, parsers and editors. The architecture includes interfaces for components and designers to communicate. The architecture includes attributes in metadata that describe the functionality associated with the instance of a component.

Claims

1. An application development architecture embodied on a computer readable storage medium, comprising:

a design tool that receives a request for a user interface component from a developer;

the user interface component that provides association to identify a designer; and

the designer associated with the user interface component that, independent of the design tool, implements design time functionality for the component and controls requests for the user interface component to implement functionality, wherein

changes to the user interface component or the designer can be made independent of the design tool.

2. The architecture of claim 1, wherein changes in the design time implementation of the user interface component are reflected in the designer associated with the user interface component and the design tool is structured independent of the design time functionality of the user interface component that is manipulated by the developer.

3. The architecture of claim 2, wherein the design time functionality includes at least one of a code generator, a compiler, a parser or an editor.

4. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the user interface component and the designer are associated via metadata.

5. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the user interface component provides information to identify the user interface component'"'"'s associated designer.

6. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the user interface component dynamically alters an association of its associated designer independent of the design tool.

7. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the user interface component provides a plurality of associated designers.

8. The architecture of claim 7, wherein a developer selectively determines which of the plurality of associated designers to associate with an instance of the user interface component.

9. The architecture of claim 1, wherein the design tool provides an interface to facilitate communication between the designer, the user interface component and the design tool.

10. An application development architecture embodied on a computer readable storage medium, comprising:

a design tool that identifies a designer associated with a user interface component and populates itself with the designer associated with the user interface component upon the receipt of a request for the user interface component so that changes to at least one of the user interface component or the designer can be made independent of the design tool; and

a designer host interface, created at design time, that creates an instance of the user interface component in response to a request for the user interface component from the developer, discerns whether the user interface component has an associated designer, creates an instance of the designer associated with the user interface component, initializes the designer, gives control of the user interface component to the designer, and coordinates servicing of the user interface component and the designer.

11. The architecture of claim 10, wherein the designer host interface dynamically destroys at least one of the instance of the user interface component or the instance of the designer associated with the user interface component.

12. The architecture of claim 10, wherein the designer automatically at least one of filters or manipulates information before it is received by its associated user interface component allowing the user interface component to be structured independent of whether it is being implemented at design time or run time.

13. The architecture of claim 10, wherein the designer and the user interface component are provided separately from each other, wherein the user interface component provides an association to identify the designer and the designer implements design time functionality for the user interface component so that changes in the design time implementation of the user interface component are reflected in the designer associated with the user interface component, and changes to the designer or the user interface component can be made independent of the design tool.

14. The architecture of claim 10, wherein the designer host interface coordinates utility tasks to the designer and the user interface component.

15. The architecture of claim 14, wherein the utility tasks include at least one of editing, parsing of source code of a text file, compiling, code generating, memory management or disk transfers.

16. The architecture of claim 10, further comprising a selection service to facilitate communication among a plurality of selected objects.

17. The architecture of claim 16, wherein the plurality of selected objects is at least one of the user interface component, the designer or the designer host interface.

18. The architecture of claim 10, wherein the design tool provides an interface between the designer and the design tool to facilitate communication between the designer and the design tool.

19. In a component based environment, embodied on a computer readable storage medium, a method for developing an application, comprising:

loading a designer host interface;

obtaining a request from a developer for a user interface component;

creating an instance of the user interface component in response to the request;

discerning whether the user interface component has an associated designer;

identifying a designer associated with the user interface component;

creating an instance of the designer associated with the user interface component;

initializing the designer to facilitate design time functionality for the user interface component;

giving control of the user interface component to the designer;

at least one of controlling, filtering or manipulating information received by the user interface component; and

invoking the designer host interface to coordinate utility tasks requested by at least one of the user interface component and the designer.

20. The method of claim 19, wherein the designer host interface provides at least one of a parser, a compiler, a code generator or an editor.