Designing electronic forms

• US 8,918,729 B2
• Filed: 04/02/2008
• Issued: 12/23/2014
• Est. Priority Date: 03/24/2003
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Fortini, Christian, Paoli, Jean D., Mollicone, Laurent, Mohan, Bulusu Krishna, Catorcini, Alessandro
• Primary Examiner(s): SAX, STEVEN PAUL
• Application Number:
  US12/061,613
• Publication Number:
  US 20090177961A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,456 Days
• Field of Search: 715/760, 715761-763, 715853-855, 715/780, 715/506, 709/246, 709223-224
• US Class Current: 715/760
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0484 for the control of specific functions or operations, e.g. selecting or manipulating an object, an image or a displayed text element, setting a parameter value or selecting a range
• 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

Abstract

A system and method enabling a designer to build electronic forms from hierarchical data is described. Displays of hierarchical data, facilitation of selection of a portion of the hierarchical data, and displays of one or more transformation-language components associated with a selected portion of hierarchical data are described. From the transformation-language components selected by a designer, generation of an electronic form is also described.

Claims

1. A method comprising:

displaying a visual representation of hierarchical data in a first area of a screen, the hierarchical data displayed in a tree arrangement of XML data having portions represented by nodes in the tree arrangement;

receiving input selecting a node of the hierarchical data;

identifying a reduced set of transformation-language components that are associated with the selected node of hierarchical data based on a structure of the selected node of hierarchical data, the reduced set of transformation-language components identified from a full set of available transformation language components, the full set of available transformation language components including at least one more transformation language component than the reduced set of transformation language components;

displaying the reduced set of transformation-language components in a component display area, the displayed reduced set of transformation-language components including at least two of a text box, a drop-down list box, a list box, an option button, or a check box;

receiving input selecting one of the reduced set of transformation-language components that is associated with the selected node of hierarchical data to place the selected transformation-language component on a second area of the screen; and

rendering the selected transformation-language component on the second area of the screen, the rendering comprising creating a rendering-language document to aid in rendering the selected transformation-language component on the second area of the screen and annotating the rendering-language document to include a reference to the selected transformation-language component; and

generating a transformation-language document using the annotated rendering-language document.

2. The method of claim 1, further comprising receiving input to save the second area of the screen prior to generating the transformation-language document.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein annotating the rendering-language document further includes reference to a placement of the selected transformation-language component.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising:

accessing the selected transformation-language component referenced in the annotated rendering-language document; and

compiling the accessed transformation-language component into the transformation-language document.

5. The method of claim 1 wherein identifying the reduced set of transformation-language is further based on a data type of the selected node of the hierarchical data.

6. A method comprising:

displaying hierarchical data in a tree arrangement of XML data having portions represented by nodes in the tree arrangement;

receiving input to select a node from the tree-arrangement of XML data;

identifying a reduced set of XSLT components that are associated with the selected node of the XML data based on a structure of the selected node of the XML data, the reduced set of XSLT components identified from a full set of available XSLT components, the full set of available XSLT components including at least one more XSLT component than the reduced set of XSLT components;

displaying the reduced set of XSLT components in a component display area, the displayed reduced set of XSLT components including at least two of a text box, a drop-down list box, a list box, an option button, or a check box;

receiving input selecting one of the reduced set of XSLT components that is associated with the selected node of the XML data to place the selected XSLT component on a second area of the screen;

rendering the selected XSLT component on the second area of the screen, the rendering comprising creating an XHTML document to aid in rendering the selected XSLT component on the second area of the screen and annotating the XHTML document to include a reference to the selected XSLT component; and

generating an XSLT file using the annotated XHTML document.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein identifying the reduced set of XSLT components based on the selected node of the XML data is further based on a schema governing the selected node of the XML data.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the XML data is part of a generalized instance.

9. A method comprising:

receiving an XML document having a structure, the structure comprising a tree arrangement of data having portions represented by nodes in the tree arrangement;

inferring an XML schema based on the structure of the XML document by breaking the XML document into nodes;

coupling the nodes of the XML document with fragments of the XML schema;

identifying a reduced set of available components to associate with the coupled portions, the reduced set of available components identified from a full set of available components based on a structure of the coupled portions, the full set of available components including at least one more available component than the reduced set of available components;

presenting the reduced set of available components to a designer to enable the designer to associate two or more components of the reduced set of available components with the coupled portions, the two or more components including at least two of a text box, a drop-down list box, a list box, an option button, or a check box;

presenting the coupled portions to the designer;

enabling the designer to select one or more of the coupled portions;

enabling the designer to associate the one or more components with the selected one or more of the coupled portions; and

creating an electronic form containing data-entry fields corresponding to the two or more components associated with the coupled portions.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the coupled portions contain information setting forth all possible documents for the coupled portion.

11. A method comprising:

receiving an XML schema;

inferring an XML document having a structure based on the XML schema, the structure comprising a tree arrangement of data having portions represented by nodes in the tree arrangement;

coupling the nodes of the XML document with fragments of the XML schema;

identifying a reduced set of available components to associate with the coupled portions, the reduced set of available components identified from a full set of available components based on a structure of the coupled portions, the full set of available components including at least one more available component than the reduced set of available components;

presenting the reduced set of available components to a designer to enable the designer to associate two or more components of the reduced set of available components with the coupled portions, the two or more components including at least two of a text box, a drop-down list box, a list box, an option button, or a check box;

presenting the coupled portions to the designer;

enabling the designer to select one or more of the coupled portions;

enabling the designer to associate the one or more components with the selected one or more of the coupled portions; and

creating an electronic form containing data-entry fields corresponding to the two or more components associated with the coupled portions.

12. The method of claim 11, wherein the coupled portions contain information setting forth all possible documents for the coupled portion.

13. A method comprising:

receiving an XML document having a structure, the structure comprising a tree arrangement of data having portions represented by nodes in the tree arrangement;

receiving an XML schema related to the XML document;

coupling the nodes of the XML document with fragments of the XML schema;

identifying a reduced set of available components to associate with the coupled portions, the reduced set of available components identified from a full set of available components based on a structure of the coupled portions, the full set of available components including at least one more available component than the reduced set of available components;

presenting the reduced set of available components to a designer to enable the designer to associate two or more components of the reduced set of available components with the coupled portions, the two or more components including at least two of a text box, a drop-down list box, a list box, an option button, or a check box;

presenting the coupled portions to the designer;

enabling the designer to select one or more of the coupled portions;

enabling the designer to associate the one or more components with the selected one or more of the coupled portions; and

creating an electronic form containing data-entry fields corresponding to the two or more components associated with the coupled portions.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein the coupled portions contain information setting forth all possible documents for the coupled portion.

15. An apparatus comprising:

means for presenting hierarchical data displayed in a tree arrangement of XML data having portions represented by nodes in the tree arrangement;

means for selecting a node of the hierarchical data;

means for displaying a reduced set of one or more transformation-language components associated with the selected node of hierarchical data based on a structure of the selected node of hierarchical data, the displayed reduced set of one or more transformation-language components identified from a full set of available transformation language components, the displayed reduced set of transformation language components including at least two of a text box, a drop-down list box, a list box, an option button, or a check box, the full set of available transformation language components including at least one more available component than the reduced set of available components;

means for selecting one of the displayed transformation-language components;

means for transforming the node of hierarchical data into a visual representation according to the structure of the selected node using the selected transformation-language component;

means for displaying into an area of a screen the visual representation of the selected node;

means for repeating the previous steps;

means for saving the area of the screen containing the visual representations of one or more of the nodes into an electronic form.