Menu driven and method system for informing which past selections have caused disabled actions

A data processing system for informing a system user which of a plurality of selections made by the system user have disabled an action in a menu presented to the user comprising:

• a memory for storing program modules and data files;
• a processor coupled to the memory by means of a system bus the processor operates the data processing system according to instructions in the program modules stored in the memory;
• means for establishing a selections list in memory, the selections list containing a plurality of selections which have been selected by the system user;
• means for updating the selections list in response to a selection or deselection by the system user;
• means for determining whether any of the selections contained in the selections list have disabled any action in an actions list containing a plurality of actions;
• display means for displaying information to the system user coupled to the processing means and the memory by means of a system bus, the display means displaying the actions list in a menu including at least one disabled action displayed in a manner indicating its disabled state;
• an input device for querying the data processing system as to the selections which are causing the disabled action to be disabled;
• and,
• means for indicating which of the selections have caused the disabled action to be disabled in response to the input means signaling that a cursor has been moved to the disabled action.

In a data processing system including a processor, a memory, display means and input means coupled together by means of a system bus, a method comprising the steps of:

• establishing a selections list containing the plurality of selections in the memory which have been selected by a user;
• updating the selections list in response to selection or deselection by the user;
• determining whether any of the selections contained in the selections list have disabled any action in an actions list containing a plurality of actions by comparing the selections list and the actions list against a data file stored in the memory which indicates which of the actions contained in the actions list are disabled by the selections contained in the selection list;
• displaying a menu on the display means, the menu containing at least one disabled action, the disabled action being displayed in a manner which indicates that the disabled action is disabled;
• and,
• indicating which of the selections contained in the selections list have caused the disabled action to be disabled in response to the user moving a cursor to the disabled action by displaying a second selections list containing the selections which have caused the disabled action to be disabled;
• wherein the steps are performed by the processor according to a set of instructions stored in the memory with user input received from the input means.