Method of identifying program compatibility featuring on-screen user interface graphic program symbols and identifiers
AssigneeAlcatel
InventorWieslawa Wajda
Life of this patent
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Abstract
By means of a user interface the application programs which are accessible through said user interface are visually represented on the display of a computer as icons (IC; P1, P2, P3, P4). It is proposed to assign an identification (DF1, DF2; DF3, . . . , DF8) to such an icon (IC; P1, P2, P3, P4) indicating which data format can be processed by the application program represented by the icon. In a simple and concise manner this identification allows compatibility with another application program which is accessible through the user interface to be determined.
Claims11
A method of indicating compatibility of programs that are accessible through a user interface of a computer, said method comprising the steps of;
- displaying a first symbol (IC, P1, . . . , P4) representative of a first accessible program;
- attaching a first coding or acoustic data format identifier (DF1, DF2, . . . , DF8) to the first symbol (IC, P1, . . . , P4) that indicates a data format that is input to the first accessible program;
- displaying a second symbol (IC, P1, . . . , P4) representative of a second accessible program;
- attaching a second coding or acoustic data format identifier (DF1, DF2, . . . , DF8) to the second symbol (IC, P1, . . . , P4) that indicates a corresponding data format that is output from the second accessible program;
- linking the first symbol (IC, P1, . . . , P4) of the first accessible program to the second symbol (IC, P1, . . . , P4) of the second accessible program;
- and
- comparing the first coding or acoustic data format identifier (DF1, DF2, . . . , DF8) to the second coding or acoustic data format identifier (DF1, DF2, . . . , DF8) to determine the compatibility of the first accessible program with the second accessible program without equiring exchange.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.