US 2010/0161674 A1Published application

Visually manipulating instance collections

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsMatthew R. Winkler, Ramrajprabu Balasubramanian, Balasubramanian Shyamsundar

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Abstract

The present invention extends to methods, systems, and computer program products for visually manipulating instance collections. Items presenters present data collections along with custom designers for each data element in the data collections. The customer designers also permit data elements in the collection to be edited in situ. Items presenters maintain data elements in a position aware fashion. Thus, data elements can be inserted into (potentially at a specified location) and deleted from an items presenter to corresponding add and delete the data elements from a data collection. Data elements can be visually moved from an items presenter in one root user interface to an items presenter in another root user interface to corresponding move the data elements between corresponding data collections

Claims20

Dependent claims

At a computer system including one or more processors and system memory, a method for visually editing a portion of a data collection, the method comprising:

an act of presenting a root user interface to visualize data from a data collection including a plurality of data elements;
an act of presenting an items presenter within the root user interface, the items presenter configured as a child element underneath the root user interface, the items presenter isolated from the root user interface, the item presenter configured to:
link to each element in the plurality of data elements;
visually present each element in the plurality of data elements;
manage the arrangement of the presented data elements, including the position of presented data elements relative to one another within the root user interface;
process changes to the presented data elements within the items presenter in isolation from the root user interface such that changes to presented data elements can be implemented with out interfering with the functionality of root user interface;
and
act of detecting user input representing a visual gesture with respect to the plurality of data elements, the visual gesture indicative of a desired user change to the arrangement of the presented data elements;
an act of the items presenter processing the visual gesture within the items presenter to implement the desired user change to the arrangement of the presented data elements without interfering with the functionality of root user interface;
and
an act of presenting the data elements after processing the visual gesture to reflect the desired user change to the arrangement of the presented data elements.

8 more elements

At a computer system including one or more processors and system memory, a method for moving a collection of a plurality of data elements between data collections, the method comprising:

an act of visually selecting data elements from within an items presenter to a data collection, the items presenter configured as a child element underneath a root user interface, the items presenter isolated from the root user interface, the item presenter:
linking to each data element in the data collection;
presenting each data element in the first collection within the root user interface;
and
managing the arrangement of the presented data elements, including the position of presented data elements relative to one another within the root user interface;
an act of visually moving the data elements to a second root user interface corresponding to a second different data collection;
an act of dropping the data elements into the second root user interface;
and
in response to dropping the data elements into the second root user interface, a second items presenter underneath the second user interface performing:
an act of linking each data element to the second data collection;
an act of presenting each data element within the second root user interface;
and
an act arranging the presented data elements, including the position of presented data elements relative to one another, within the second root user interface.

10 more elements

A computer program product for user at a computer system the computer program product for implementing a method for visualizing a data collection, the computer program product comprising one or more computer storage media having stored thereon computer-executable instructions that, when executed at a processor, cause the computer system to perform the method including the following:

present a root user interface to visualize a data collection;
add an items presenter as a child element underneath the root user interface, the items presented configured to:
receive data elements from the data collection at visual placeholders;
manage the arrangement of the data elements within the root user interface, including the position of data elements relative to one another within the root user interface;
process changes to the presentation of data elements within the root user interface in isolation from the root user interface such that changes to presented data elements can be implemented with out interfering with the functionality of root user interface;
detect a user interface drop event;
and
in response to detecting a user interface drop event:
create new instances for each of a plurality of dropped data elements;
create editing experiences for each of the new instances of the dropped data elements based on the data types of the dropped data elements;
and
visually display the editing experience in accordance with the managed arrangement within the root user interface;
wherein creating editing experiences for each of the new instances of the dropped data elements includes for at least a first and second data element:
identifying the data type of the data element;
calling a metadata store to determine an editing experience for the identified data type;
and
instantiating an instance of the editing experience within the placeholder.

14 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.