Amending the display property of grid elements

• US 8,938,672 B2
• Filed: 11/04/2008
• Issued: 01/20/2015
• Est. Priority Date: 11/04/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Wrp IP Management, LLC
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Desantis, Robert, Kickhofel, Robert, Ni, Jia Yuan
• Primary Examiner(s): Queler, Adam
• Assistant Examiner(s): BURKE, TIONNA M
• Application Number:
  US12/264,339
• Publication Number:
  US 20100115390A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,268 Days
• Field of Search: 715/273
• US Class Current: 715/273
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/9577 Optimising the visualization of content, e.g. distillation of HTML documents
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/177 of tables; using ruled lines

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method and system for amending a display property of a grid element. The method for amending a display property of a grid element comprises: receiving a command to amend the display property of at least one grid element; searching grid elements associated with said grid element; amending the display property of said grid elements and said associated grid elements. The present invention improves the operation of adjusting the display property of the grid, and enhances the operational efficiency and feasibility.

Claims

1. A method for amending a display property of a grid element, the method comprising:

receiving a command to amend the display property of at least one grid element within a multi-dimensional grid, the multi-dimensional grid having a plurality of grid elements, wherein the multi-dimensional grid has at least one of a plurality of header columns and a plurality of header rows displayed in a hierarchy, wherein each header column and header row is a dimension, and wherein each dimension comprises one or more grid elements;

searching within the multi-dimensional grid for one or more other grid elements that are associated with the at least one grid element;

in response to locating the associated one or more other grid elements, a processor amending the display property of the at least one grid element and the associated one or more other grid elements; and

in response to receiving a designation to simultaneously amend a display property of a plurality of members having a same member name;

acquiring a first tuple associated with a first header cell;

searching among all tuples in the multi-dimensional grid for one or more tuples having a same member name as the first header cell, wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed in one or more instances when expanded, wherein a header cell is located in one or more tuples, and wherein a tuple is a combination of multiple members from a plurality of dimensions; and

updating a header and a data cell within each of the one or more tuples having the same member name as the first header cell.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

sending the received command to a server;

enabling a search at the server of the associated one or more other grid elements associated with the at least one grid element; and

receiving, from the server, an amendment to the display property of the associated one or more other grid elements.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising:

making a statistics for a number of the associated grid elements, wherein the server sends the entire multi-dimensional grid with the amended display property as a new display property in response to a number of the associated one or more other grid elements exceeds a preset value; and

in response to the server sending the multi-dimensional grid with the new property;

receiving the multi-dimensional grid with the new display property at the client; and

updating the multi-dimensional grid at the client.

4. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

searching for one or more members having at least one of the same name and the same meaning as a plurality of members represented by the amended grid element in a same dimension hierarchy as the associated one or more other grid elements, wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed in one or more instances when expanded;

receiving a designation of one or more grid elements to be the associated one or more other grid elements;

storing a record of the amended display property within a storage; and

in response to the multi-dimensional grid being created or rebuilt, applying the stored property to the multi-dimensional grid.

5. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

in response to the amended display property being a new size of the grid element, calculating a new position of a scrollbar according to the new size; and

updating the scrollbar according to the new position to keep a current window indicated by the scrollbar unchanged before and after amending the display property.

6. The method according to claim 1, further comprising:

in response to said the display property being a size of the at least one grid element;

calculating a new size of the at least one grid element where an associated member exists in an upper dimension hierarchy in a same tuple; and

amending the size of the at least one grid element to the new size where the associated member exists in the upper dimension hierarchy;

wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed within one or more instances when expanded.

7. A system for amending a display property of a grid element, the system comprising:

a processor;

a memory having logic embodied therein that when executed by the processor enables the system to;

receive a command to amend the display property of at least one grid element within a multi-dimensional grid, the multi-dimensional grid having a plurality of grid elements, wherein the multi-dimensional grid has at least one of a plurality of header columns and a plurality of header rows displayed in a hierarchy, wherein each header column and header row is a dimension, and wherein each dimension comprises one or more grid elements;

search within the multi-dimensional grid for one or more other grid elements that are associated with the at least one grid element;

in response to locating the associated one or more other grid elements, amend the display property of the at least one grid element and the associated one or more other grid elements; and

in response to receiving a designation to simultaneously amend a display property of a plurality of members having a same member name;

acquire a first tuple associated with a first header cell;

search among all tuples in the multi-dimensional grid for one or more tuples having a same member name as the first header cell, wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed in one or more instances when expanded, wherein a header cell is located in one or more tuples, and wherein a tuple is a combination of multiple members from a plurality of dimensions; and

update a header and a data cell within each of the one or more tuples having the same member name as the first header cell.

8. The system according to claim 7, the logic further comprising logic that when executed by the processor enables the system to:

send the received command to a server;

trigger a searching device of the server to search, at the server, for the associated one or more other grid elements associated with the at least one grid element; and

receive, from an updating device of the server, an amendment to the display property of the associated one or more other grid elements as a new display property.

9. The system according to claim 8, the logic further comprising logic that when executed by the processor enables the system to:

determine the number of the associated one or more other grid elements, and if the number of the associated grid elements exceeds a preset value, sends the multi-dimensional grid with new display property to the client;

receive the multi-dimensional grid with the new display property; and

in response to receiving, from the server, the multi-dimensional grid at the network interface device, update the multi-dimensional grid.

10. The system according to claim 7, the logic further comprising logic that when executed by the processor enables the system to:

designate one or more grid elements to be the associated one or more other grid elements; and

search for members having at least one of the same name and meaning as a plurality of members represented by the amended grid element in a same dimension hierarchy as the associated one or more other grid elements, wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed in one or more instances when expanded;

receive a designation of one or more grid elements to be the associated one or more other grid elements;

store a record of the amended display property within a storage; and

in response to the multi-dimensional grid being created or rebuilt, apply the stored property to the multi-dimensional grid.

11. The system according to claim 7, the logic further comprising logic that when executed by the processor enables the system to:

in response to the amended display property being a new size of the grid element, calculate a new position of a scrollbar according to the new size; and

update the scrollbar according to the new position to keep a current window indicated by the scrollbar unchanged before and after amending the display property.

12. The system according to claim 7, the logic further comprising logic that when executed by the processor enables the system to:

in response to the display property being a size of the grid element;

calculate a new size of the grid element where an associated member exists in an upper dimension hierarchy in a same tuple; and

amend the size of the at least one grid element to the new size where the associated member exists in the upper dimension hierarchy;

wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed within one or more instances when expanded.

13. A computer program product comprising:

a non-transitory computer readable storage device; and

computer readable instructions stored on the computer readable storage device that when executed by a processor the program instructions cause the processor to perform the functions of;

receiving a command to amend the display property of at least one grid element within a multi-dimensional grid, the multi-dimensional grid comprising a plurality of grid elements, wherein the multi-dimensional grid has at least one of a plurality of header columns and a plurality of header rows displayed in a hierarchy, wherein each header column and header row is a dimension, and wherein each dimension comprises one or more grid elements;

searching within the multi-dimensional grid for one or more other grid elements that are associated with the at least one grid element;

in response to locating the associated one or more other grid elements, a processor amending the display property of the at least one grid element and the associated one or more other grid elements; and

in response to receiving a designation to simultaneously amend a display property of a plurality of members having a same member name;

acquiring a first tuple associated with a first header cell;

searching among all tuples in the multi-dimensional grid for one or more tuples having a same member name as the first header cell, wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed in one or more instances when expanded, wherein a header cell is located in one or more tuples, and wherein a tuple is a combination of multiple members from a plurality of dimensions; and

updating a header and a data cell within each of the one or more tuples having the same member name as the first header cell.

14. The computer program product according to claim 13, the computer readable instructions further comprising instructions for:

sending the received command to a server;

enabling a search at the server of the associated one or more other grid elements associated with the at least one grid element; and

receiving, from the server, an amendment to the display property of the associated one or more other grid elements.

15. The computer program product according to claim 14, the computer readable instructions further comprising instructions for:

making a statistics for a number of the associated grid elements, wherein the server sends the entire multi-dimensional grid with the amended display property as a new display property in response to a number of the associated one or more other grid elements exceeds a preset value; and

in response to the server sending the multi-dimensional grid with the new property;

receiving the multi-dimensional grid with the new display property at the client; and

updating the multi-dimensional grid at the client.

16. The computer program product according to claim 14, the computer readable instructions further comprising instructions for:

searching members having at least one of the same name and meaning with members represented by the amended grid elements in the same dimension hierarchy as the associated grid elements;

receiving a designation of one or more grid elements to be the associated one or more other grid elements;

storing a record of the amended display property within a storage;

in response to the multi-dimensional grid being created or rebuilt, applying the stored property to the multi-dimensional grid;

in response to the amended display property being a new size of the grid element, calculating a new position of a scrollbar according to the new size; and

updating the scrollbar according to the new position to keep a current window indicated by the scrollbar unchanged before and after amending the display property.

17. The computer program product according to claim 14, the computer readable instructions further comprising instructions for:

in response to said the display property being a size of the at least one grid element;

an upper dimension hierarchy in a same tuple; and

amending the size of the at least one grid element to the new size where the associated member exists in the upper dimension hierarchy;

wherein a member is a grid element in a dimension that is displayed within one or more instances when expanded.