Method and apparatus for organizing window groups and windows in a table
AssigneeApple Computer, Inc.
InventorTimothy J. Craycroft
Life of this patent
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Abstract
"A method and apparatus for organizing windows to be displayed on a screen of a computer system into window groups by attribute, function, content, or any arbitrary characteristic. A window's membership in a window group is also assigned a status that determines whether the window, upon selection, is displayed individually or as part of that group. Each window may simultaneously belong to a plurality of window groups. A data structure may be formed in a table where windows represent rows and window groups represent columns".
Claims18
A method for organizing windows displayed on a screen of a computer, the method comprising the steps of:
- defining a plurality of predetermined window groups;
- sorting windows into the predetermined window groups, wherein a given window may belong to more than one window group and each window group contains at least one window;
- and
- assigning membership status to each window of a group,
- wherein a window's membership status in a given window group determines whether, in response to selection of the window, to display either the selected window individually or all windows of the given window group.
An apparatus for organizing windows displayed on a screen of a computer, the apparatus comprising:
- a processor;
- an operating system cooperating with the processor to control the screen;
- at least one application program cooperating with the operating system to define the windows that may be displayed on the screen;
- means for organizing windows into a plurality of window groups, each window group containing at least one window and a given window capable of belonging to more than one group;
- and
- means for assigning membership status to each window of a group, such that a window's membership status in a given window group determines whether, in response to selection of the window, to display either the selected window individually or all windows of the given window group.
A method for organizing windows displayed on a screen of a computer, the method comprising the steps of:
- sorting windows into predetermined window groups, wherein each window group contains at least one window;
- and
- assigning membership status to each window of a group to display either the window or the window group,
- wherein the step of sorting comprises:
- organizing the windows of the predetermined window groups using an arrangement of data structures;
- manipulating the contents of the data structures using application programming interface (API) system calls;
- and
- arraying the data structures into a pair of data tables having a plurality of rows and columns, wherein the rows represent the windows and the columns represent the window groups.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.