System for hosting graphical layout/presentation objects

• US 20040225960A1
• Filed: 05/09/2003
• Published: 11/11/2004
• Est. Priority Date: 05/09/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Parikh, Sujal S., Newman, Debbie A., Zygmunt, Grzegorz, Titov, Dmitry, Ovetchkine, Oleg, Lett, Gregory
• Application Number:
  US10/434,850
• Publication Number:
  US 20040225960A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 715/517
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 8/38 for implementing user interfaces
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 9/451 Execution arrangements for user interfaces

Abstract

A presenter system framework and methods performed by such framework are described for hosting a set of presenters that facilitate maintaining layouts for application views assigned a set of graphical elements. The presenter system provides a base presenter class and a set of interface methods, performed by a presentation engine, for creating and integrating an extensible set of presenter classes for handling various graphical element data types during a layout operation within a specified view. The presenter system enables application user interface developers to implement complex display layout operations through calls to the presentation engine. Examples of such complex display layout operations include: pagination, partial calculation, incremental calculation, multiple tries, chaining of layout features/operations.

Claims

1. A graphical output layout management system for arranging and maintaining graphically displayed output of programs executing on a computing system, the graphical output layout management system comprising:

graphical elements containing data representing displayable content of a program;

presenters defining display states for the graphical elements, wherein a presenter of a particular type maintains a layout description for a corresponding graphical element; and

a presenter system, including a presenter host interface comprising a method for preparing a layout for a view, according to a set of presenters associated with graphical elements contained within the view.

2. The graphical output layout management system of claim 1 wherein the presenter system further comprises a presenter base class, and wherein the set of presenters are instantiated from presenter classes derived from the presenter base class.

3. The graphical output layout management system of claim 2 wherein the presenters include an update method for calculating layout properties for the presenter.

4. The graphical output layout management system of claim 3 wherein the presenters include a render method for generating instructions issued to a graphics output subsystem of the computer system.

5. The graphical output layout management system of claim 2 wherein the presenter classes include predefined presenter classes and external presenter classes.

6. The graphical output layout management system of claim 1 wherein each of the presenters calculates a layout state for a corresponding graphical element based upon layout parameter values specified on the presenter.

7. The graphical output layout management system of claim 1 further comprising a set of notification handlers, each notification handler being associated with a particular one of the set of presenters in the view, and wherein a notification handler processes a change to a graphical element to determine whether to update a corresponding presenter.

8. The graphical output layout management system of claim 7 wherein each presenter specifies a type of notification handler that provides change notifications to the particular presenter regarding an associated graphical element.

9. The graphical output layout management system of claim 8 wherein a notification handler determines a part of a corresponding presenter that requires updating in view of changes to an associated graphical element.

10. The graphical output layout management system of claim 7 wherein the presenter system registers, through the notification handlers, presenters that require updating based upon changes to corresponding graphical elements.

11. The graphical output layout management system of claim 1 wherein a graphical element instance of the graphical elements is associated with multiple presenters.

12. The graphical output layout management system of claim 11 wherein the multiple presenters with which the graphical element instance is associated are of a same type.

13. The graphical output layout management system of claim 12 wherein the multiple presenters correspond to distinct columns within a same view.

14. The graphical output layout management system of claim 12 wherein the multiple presenters correspond to distinct pages in a document view of a single graphical element.

17. The graphical output layout management system of claim 1 wherein the view corresponds to a rectangular region within a graphical display space.

18. The graphical output layout management system of claim 11 wherein the multiple presenters associated with the graphical element instance are of different types.

19. The graphical output layout management system of claim 18 wherein one of the multiple presenters comprises an adornment presenter to a main presenter.

20. The graphical output layout management system of claim 1 wherein presenters within a view are hierarchically arranged such that child presenters are contained within a region specified by a corresponding parent presenter.

15. The graphical output layout management system of claim 111 wherein a first presenter and a second presenter, of the multiple presenters associated with the graphical element instance, are associated with respective first and second distinct views.

16. The graphical output layout management system of claim 15 wherein the first and second distinct views are hosted by respective first and second presenter systems.

21. A presenter system for incorporation within a graphical output layout management system for processing a layout, on behalf of a program providing graphical elements containing data representing displayable content of the program, through presenters defining display states for the graphical elements, and wherein a presenter maintains a layout description for a corresponding graphical element, and wherein the presenter system hosts and arranges the presenters associated with graphical elements within a view, the presenter system comprising:

a presenter base class from which presenter classes are derived, and wherein the presenters are instantiated from the presenter classes; and

a presenter host interface comprising a set of methods including at least a method for preparing a layout embodied in the set of presenters associated with graphical elements within the view.

22. The presenter system of claim 21 wherein the presenter base class specifies a customizable update method, overridden by derived presenter classes, for calculating layout properties for a presenter.

23. The presenter system of claim 22 wherein the presenter base class specifies a customizable render method, overridden by derived presenter classes, for generating instructions issued to a graphics output subsystem of the computer system.

24. The presenter system of claim 21 wherein the presenter system supports a set of presenter classes that includes predefined presenter classes and external presenter classes.

25. The presenter system of claim 21 wherein the presenter base class specifies a method for calculating a layout state for a graphical element based upon layout parameter values specified on an associated presenter.

26. The presenter system of claim 21 further comprising a notification handler base class from which notification handler classes are derived, and wherein each notification handler instantiated from a notification handler class is associated with a particular presenter in a view, and wherein a notification handler processes a change to a graphical element to determine whether to update a corresponding presenter.

27. The presenter system of claim 26 wherein the base presenter class includes a placeholder for a presenter to specify a type of notification handler that provides change notifications to the particular presenter regarding an associated graphical element.

28. The presenter system of claim 26 wherein the presenter system registers, through notification handlers, presenters that require updating based upon changes to corresponding graphical elements.

29. The presenter system of claim 21 wherein the presenter system is associated with a view characterized by a root graphical element and an assigned area within which to display the root graphical element and its child graphical elements.

30. The presenter system of claim 29 wherein the view corresponds to a rectangular region within a graphical display space.

31. The presenter system of claim 21 wherein the presenter host interface includes a constructor for instantiating the presenter system for laying out a display for a view comprising a set of graphical elements.

32. The presenter system of claim 31 wherein the view is specified at least in part by a root graphical element passed to the constructor.

33. The presenter system of claim 21 wherein the presenter system supports chaining multiple presenters such that a first presenter provides and adornment for a second presenter associated with a graphical element.

34. The presenter system of claim 21 wherein the presenter base class includes a placeholder for specifying child presenters, thereby supporting creation of a hierarchical tree structure of presenters within a view such that child presenters are contained within a region specified by a corresponding parent presenter.

35. A method for processing a layout, on behalf of a program providing graphical elements containing data representing displayable content of the program, through presenters defining display states for the graphical elements, and wherein a presenter maintains a layout description for a corresponding graphical element, and wherein the presenter system hosts and arranges the presenters associated with graphical elements within a view, the method comprising:

providing a presenter system comprising a presenter base class and a presenter host interface comprising a method for creating a layout embodied in a set of presenters associated with graphical elements within a view;

receiving a request, by the presenter host interface, to generate a layout for a set of graphical elements within a view; and

instantiating, for the set of graphical elements, corresponding presenters from a set of presenter classes derived from the presenter base class and invoking a method on each instantiated presenter to calculate a layout state for a graphical element corresponding to the presenter.

36. The method of claim 35 further comprising the step of:

providing a notification handler base class specifying an interface for a set of notification handlers that facilitate incremental update to a layout based upon changes to corresponding graphical elements.

37. The method of claim 35 further comprising organizing the presenters for the view in the form of a hierarchical tree.

38. The method of claim 35 wherein an instance of the presenter system is created in response to a call to create a layout for a view, thereby creating a distinct presenter system, and corresponding presenters, for each view.

39. The method of claim 35 wherein the presenter base class specifies an update method for calculating layout properties for a presenter instance associated with a particular graphical element.

40. The method of claim 35 wherein the presenter base class specifies a render method for generating instructions issued to a graphics output subsystem.

41. The method of claim 35 wherein the presenter system supports derivation of predefined presenter classes and external presenter classes.

42. The method of claim 35 wherein the presenter classes correspond to differing types of presenters that layout different types of graphical element content.

43. The method of claim 35 wherein presenters within a view are hierarchically arranged such that child presenters are contained within a region specified by a corresponding parent presenter.

44. A computer-readable medium including computer-executable instructions for facilitating processing a layout, on behalf of a program providing graphical elements containing data representing displayable content of the program, through presenters defining display states for the graphical elements, and wherein a presenter maintains a layout description for a corresponding graphical element, and wherein the presenter system hosts and arranges the presenters associated with graphical elements within a view, the computer-executable instructions facilitating performing a method comprising:

providing a presenter system comprising a presenter base class and a presenter host interface comprising a method for creating a layout embodied in a set of presenters associated with graphical elements within a view;

receiving a request, by the presenter host interface, to generate a layout for a set of graphical elements within a view; and

instantiating, for the set of graphical elements, corresponding presenters from a set of presenter classes derived from the presenter base class and invoking a method on each instantiated presenter to calculate a layout state for a graphical element corresponding to the presenter.

45. The computer-readable medium of claim 44 further comprising computer-executable instructions for:

organizing the presenters for the view in the form of a hierarchical tree.

46. The computer-readable medium of claim 44 wherein computer-executable instructions facilitate creating an instance of the presenter system in response to a call to create a layout for a view, thereby creating a distinct presenter system, and corresponding presenters, for each view.

47. The computer-readable medium of claim 44 wherein the presenter base class specifies an update method for calculating layout properties for a presenter instance associated with a particular graphical element.

48. The computer-readable medium of claim 44 wherein the presenter base class specifies a render method for generating instructions issued to a graphics output subsystem.

49. The computer-readable medium of claim 44 wherein the presenter system supports derivation of predefined presenter classes and external presenter classes.

50. The computer-readable medium of claim 44 wherein the presenter classes correspond to differing types of presenters that layout different types of graphical element content.

51. The computer-readable medium of claim 44 wherein the presenter base class specifies a placeholder for child presenters, thereby facilitating hierarchically laying out presenters within a view such that child presenters are contained within a region specified by a corresponding parent presenter.