Mutually exclusive options in electronic forms

• US 20060107252A1
• Filed: 11/15/2004
• Published: 05/18/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/15/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Microsoft Technology Licensing LLC (Microsoft Corporation)
• Original Assignee: Microsoft Corporation
• Inventors: Catorcini, Alessandro, Begun, Andrew Paul, Roberts, Scott M., Smuga, Michael A., Raj David, Willson Kulandai
• Granted Patent: US 7,712,022 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 717/114
• 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. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions therein that, when executed by a computer, cause the computer to enable a user to select from mutually exclusive options in an electronic form, and responsive to a selection by the user of one of the mutually exclusive options, enable interaction with the selected mutually exclusive option while maintaining the electronic form'"'"'s validity to a schema governing the electronic form.

2. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the act of enable interaction comprises enable entry of information into the selected mutually exclusive option.

3. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the mutually exclusive options are governed by the schema.

4. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein each of the mutually exclusive options corresponds one-to-one with a data substructure capable of being swapped one with the other in a data structure of the electronic form.

5. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the electronic form comprises eXtensible Markup Language (XML).

6. The computer-readable media of claim 1, wherein the media further causes the computer to swap, responsive to the selection, a data substructure present in a data structure of the electronic form with a data substructure corresponding to the selected mutually exclusive option.

7. The computer-readable media of claim 6, wherein the swap is an atomic operation.

8. A system embodying the computer-readable media of claim 1.

9. A method comprising:

enabling selection of two or more mutually exclusive options;

receiving selection of two of the mutually exclusive options; and

building the selected mutually exclusive options for an electronic form effective to enable the electronic form to permit entry to one of the selected mutually exclusive options without the electronic form transitioning through an invalid state.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the building is further effective to enable the electronic form to swap, in a data structure of the electronic form, data substructures corresponding to the mutually exclusive options.

11. The method of claim 10, wherein the swap is an atomic operation.

12. The method of claim 9, wherein the building is further effective to enable the electronic form to permit entry to a data substructure corresponding to the selected mutually exclusive option.

13. The method of claim 9, wherein each of the mutually exclusive options maps one-to-one with a data substructure and the building is effective to enable the electronic form'"'"'s data structure to comprise only one of the data substructures at a time.

14. The method of claim 9, wherein the act of building comprises adding eXtensible Markup Language (XML) to a schema governing the electronic form.

15. A system comprising means for performing the method recited in claim 9.

16. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 9.

17. A user interface comprising:

a form-design area to display a mutually exclusive option container;

an option area within the mutually exclusive option container to display selected mutually exclusive options; and

an interface to enable a designer to select the mutually exclusive option container to be placed in the form-design area and the mutually exclusive options to be placed in the option area.

18. The user interface of claim 17, wherein the interface enables the designer to select the mutually exclusive options by dragging graphics representing the mutually exclusive options and dropping them into the option area.

19. The user interface of claim 17, wherein the interface enables the designer to select the mutually exclusive options by dragging icons representing the mutually exclusive options and dropping them into the option area.

20. The user interface of claim 17, wherein the interface enables the designer to select the mutually exclusive option container by dragging a graphic representing the mutually exclusive option container and dropping it in the form-design area.

21. The user interface of claim 17, wherein the form-design area is to display a repeating mutually exclusive option container.

22. The user interface of claim 21, wherein the interface enables the designer to select the repeating mutually exclusive option container by dragging a graphic representing the repeating mutually exclusive option container and dropping it in the form-design area.

23. A system embodying the user interface of claim 17.

24. A method comprising:

presenting to a user an electronic form having mutually exclusive options;

enabling selection of one of the mutually exclusive options;

receiving the selection; and

enabling the user to enter information into the selected mutually exclusive option while the electronic form is valid to a schema governing the electronic form.

25. The method of claim 24, wherein the act of presenting comprises presenting data-entry field(s) for entry into one of the mutually exclusive options, and further comprising, responsive to receiving the selection, replacing the presented data-entry field(s) with other data-entry field(s) corresponding to the selected mutually exclusive option.

26. The method of claim 25, further comprising swapping a data substructure of the mutually exclusive option corresponding to the presented data-entry fields with another data substructure corresponding to the selected mutually exclusive option, the swapping effective to enable the act of replacing.

27. The method of claim 26, wherein the act of swapping the data substructure is an atomic operation.

28. The method of claim 24, wherein the act of presenting comprises transforming, with an eXtensible Stylesheet Language Transformation (XSLT) a data structure corresponding to the electronic form that comprises eXtensible Markup Language.

29. The method of claim 24, wherein the act of enabling selection comprises presenting menu options to the user, the menu options describing an operation of swapping one mutually exclusive option with another.

30. The method of claim 24, wherein the act of enabling the user to enter information comprises swapping a data substructure that maps one-to-one with the selected mutually exclusive option for another data substructure of the electronic form'"'"'s data structure.

31. The method of claim 30, wherein the act of swapping is an atomic operation.

32. The method of claim 24, wherein a data substructure corresponding to the selected mutually exclusive option is present in a data structure of the electronic form but no other data substructures corresponding to unselected mutually exclusive options are present in the data structure.

33. A system comprising means for performing the method recited in claim 24.

34. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 24.

35. A method comprising:

presenting to a user an electronic form having repeating sets of mutually exclusive options;

enabling selection of one of the mutually exclusive options for each of the repeating sets; and

enabling the user, responsive to receiving selections of mutually exclusive options, to enter information into the selected mutually exclusive option for each of the repeating sets while the electronic form is valid to a schema governing the electronic form.

36. The method of claim 35, wherein the repeating sets have an arbitrary number of sets.

37. The method of claim 36, wherein the arbitrary number of sets is determined, responsive to receiving the selections, based on a number of selections received.

38. A system comprising means for performing the method recited in claim 35.

39. One or more computer-readable media having computer-readable instructions for performing the method recited in claim 35.