Mutually exclusive options in electronic forms

• US 7,712,022 B2
• Filed: 11/15/2004
• Issued: 05/04/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Raj David, Willson Kulandai, Catorcini, Alessandro, Smuga, Michael A, Begun, Andrew Paul, Roberts, Scott M.
• Primary Examiner(s): Ries; Laurie
• Assistant Examiner(s): NGUYEN, CHAU T
• Application Number:
  US10/988,720
• Publication Number:
  US 20060107252A1
• Time in Patent Office: 1,996 Days
• Field of Search: 715/503, 715/504, 715/517, 715/203, 715/204, 715/221, 715/226, 715/273, 715/234, 715/237, 715/224
• US Class Current: 715/221
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/143 Markup, e.g. Standard Generalized Markup Language [SGML] or Document Type Definition [DTD]
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/174 Form filling; Merging
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/226 Validation

Abstract

Systems and methods enabling creation and/or use of an electronic form capable of allowing a user to select from mutually exclusive options without the electronic form being in an invalid state are described. One of the described electronic forms remains valid to its schema by atomic swapping of data substructures corresponding to the form'"'"'s mutually exclusive options. A method and a user interface for creating some of these electronic forms are also described.

Claims

1. A system comprising:

a computing device including one or more processing units;

one or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions therein that, when executed by the one or more processing units, cause the one or more processing units to;

enable a user to select from mutually exclusive options in an electronic form, the electronic form including eXtensible Markup Language (XML);

responsive to a selection by the user of a first mutually exclusive option, enable interaction with the first mutually exclusive option while maintaining the electronic form'"'"'s validity to a schema governing the electronic form;

responsive to a selection of a second mutually exclusive option, perform an atomic operation effective to replace, in a data structure corresponding to at least a portion of the electronic form, a first data substructure corresponding to the first mutually exclusive option with a second data substructure corresponding to the second mutually exclusive option while the electronic form is in a mode permitting entry of data into one or more fillable fields of the electronic form; and

perform a transformation of at least a portion of the data structure effective to enable interaction with the second mutually exclusive option while maintaining the electronic form'"'"'s validity to the schema governing the electronic form.

2. The system of claim 1, wherein the computer-readable instructions, when executed by the one or more processing units, cause the one or more processing units to enable interaction by enabling entry of information into the selected mutually exclusive option.

3. The system of claim 1, wherein the mutually exclusive options are governed by the schema.

4. The system of claim 1, wherein the first mutually exclusive option and the second mutually exclusive option each correspond one-to-one with the first data substructure and the second data substructure, respectively.

5. A method comprising:

receiving a selection of a plurality of mutually exclusive options displayed in a graphical user interface of a design application configured to enable design of an electronic form, the electronic form including eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and each of the plurality of mutually exclusive options being mutually exclusive with respect to each other; and

causing the design application to build the plurality of mutually exclusive options into an electronic form effective to enable a runtime application to;

permit data entry to a first mutually exclusive option among the plurality of mutually exclusive options without the electronic form transitioning through an invalid state;

responsive to a selection of a second mutually exclusive option among the plurality of mutually exclusive options, perform an atomic operation effective to swap, in a data structure corresponding to at least a portion of the electronic form, a first data substructure corresponding to the first mutually exclusive option with a second data substructure corresponding to the second mutually exclusive option while the electronic form is in a mode permitting entry of data into one or more fillable fields of the electronic form; and

perform a transformation of at least a portion of the data structure effective to permit data entry to the second mutually exclusive option without the electronic form transitioning through an invalid state.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the design application is further configured to enable the runtime application to permit data entry to data substructures corresponding to each of the plurality of mutually exclusive options.

7. The method of claim 5, wherein the first mutually exclusive option and the second mutually exclusive option each maps one-to-one with the first data substructure and the second data substructure, respectively;

and

wherein the design application is further configured to enable the data structure to include only one of the first data substructure or the second data substructure at a given time.

8. The method of claim 5, further comprising causing the design application to build the plurality of mutually exclusive options into the electronic form by adding eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to a schema governing the electronic form.

9. A method comprising:

presenting an electronic form having a plurality of mutually exclusive options, the electronic form including eXtensible Markup Language (XML);

presenting a graphical user interface associated with the electronic form, the graphical user interface including an option menu configured to enable selection from among the plurality of mutually exclusive options, each of the plurality of mutually exclusive options including one or more fillable fields configured to receive data entry;

receiving a selection of a first mutually exclusive option from the option menu;

enabling data entry into one or more fillable fields associated with the first mutually exclusive option;

receiving a selection of a second mutually exclusive option from the option menu;

performing an atomic operation effective to swap, in a data structure corresponding to at least a portion of the electronic form, a first data substructure that corresponds to the first mutually exclusive option for a second data substructure that corresponds to the second mutually exclusive option while the electronic form is in a mode permitting entry of data into one or more fillable fields of the electronic form; and

performing a transformation of at least a portion of the data structure effective to enable data entry into fillable fields associated with the second mutually exclusive option while the electronic form is valid to a schema governing the electronic form.

10. The method of claim 9, further comprising performing the transformation of the at least a portion of the data structure by transforming, with an eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT), the at least a portion of the data structure, wherein the data structure comprises eXtensible Markup Language.

11. The method of claim 9, wherein the option menu describes an operation of swapping one mutually exclusive option with another.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the first mutually exclusive option and the second mutually exclusive option each maps one-to-one with the first data substructure and the second data substructure, respectively.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein the data substructure corresponding to a selected mutually exclusive option is present in the data structure of the electronic form but no other data substructures corresponding to unselected mutually exclusive options are present in the data structure.

14. A method comprising:

presenting to a user an electronic form including eXtensible Markup Language (XML) and having repeating sets of mutually exclusive options, a first set of the repeating sets including a first mutually exclusive option that is mutually exclusive with respect to a second mutually exclusive option of a second set of the repeating sets;

presenting to the user a graphical user interface associated with and separate from the electronic form, the graphical user interface enabling selection of one of the mutually exclusive options for each of the repeating sets while the electronic form is in a mode permitting entry of data into one or more fillable fields of the electronic form;

enabling the user, responsive to receiving selections of mutually exclusive options from the graphical user interface, to enter information into fillable fields associated with the selected mutually exclusive option for each of the repeating sets while the electronic form is valid to a schema governing the electronic form;

responsive to an indication that one of the selections of the mutually exclusive options has been changed from a first mutually exclusive option to a second mutually exclusive option, perform an atomic operation effective to replace, in a data structure corresponding to at least a portion of the electronic form, a first data substructure corresponding to the first mutually exclusive option with a second data substructure corresponding to the second mutually exclusive option while the electronic form is in a mode permitting entry of data into one or more fillable fields of the electronic form; and

performing a transformation of at least a portion of the data structure effective to enable the user to enter information into fillable fields associated with the second mutually exclusive option while the electronic form is valid to the schema governing the electronic form.

15. The method of claim 14, wherein the repeating sets have an arbitrary number of sets.

16. The method of claim 15, wherein the arbitrary number of sets is determined, responsive to receiving the selections, based on a number of selections received.