Declaratively responding to state changes in an interactive multimedia environment

A machine-readable medium containing instructions which, when performed by one or more processors disposed in an electronic device, performs a method for handling user events in interactive multimedia environment, the method comprising the steps of:

• processing an application in which at least a portion of an application is defined using a declarative description;
• creating a runtime context for the application by generating a document object model (“DOM”) using the declarative description, the DOM comprising a plurality of state elements and providing an interface to the application to thereby enable modification to the declarative description;
• responsively to a user event, modifying one or more state elements among the plurality of state elements in the DOM and
• delivering the user event to the application through the interface according to the modified state elements.

A machine-readable medium including software executed by at least one processor, the software comprising:

• a presentation engine arranged for
• a) decoding a declarative description of an application running in an interactive multimedia environment to thereby generate a document object model (“DOM”) comprising a plurality of nodes, and
• b) querying the DOM to retrieve a state attribute from an element disposed in a node in the plurality of nodes;
• an input event interface operatively coupled to the presentation engine for receiving an event associated with user interaction;
• and
• a memory interface coupled to the presentation engine for addressing a memory arranged for storing the DOM.