Aggregation of system settings into objects

In a computer system running an operating system that provides an operating environment to a user, said operating environment being specified by values of system settings, a method comprising the steps of:

• providing a control panel for controlling current values of the system settings;
• storing sets of values for the system settings in a storage device in a network to which the computer system is connected, each set including values for at least a portion of the system settings;
• providing an interface for enabling the user to select one of the sets of values;
• and
• in response to a selection of one of the sets of values by the user, downloading the selected set of values from said storage device in said network and changing the current system settings to have the values of the selected set of values.

In a computer system connected to a network having an input device and a video display and running an operating system that provides an operating environment to a user as specified by system settings, a method comprising the steps of:

• providing a first object holding values for system settings, said first object having a representation on the video display;
• providing a second object holding system settings, said second object having a representation on the video display;
• dragging the representation of the first object on the video display to lie over at least a portion of the representation of the second object in response to the user using the input device;
• dropping the representation of the first object on the representation of the second object in response to the user using the input device;
• in response to the dropping of the representation of the first object on the representation of the second object, downloading the values for system settings in the first object from a storage device in said network and changing the values for system settings in the second object to the values for system settings in the first object.

A system for providing a desktop environment to a user and being connected to a network, said desktop environment having associated system settings that affect it, comprising:

• a display component for displaying an interface to a user as part of the desktop environment according to the system settings;
• a first container in said network holding a first set of system settings values;
• a second container in said network holding a second set of system settings values;
• a selection component that receives selection information and in response selects between the first container and the second container;
• and
• a change component responsive to the selection component for changing the system settings to those downloaded from the selected container.

A computer-implemented method for modifying an appearance of a desktop environment of a computer system, the desktop environment providing a plurality of parameters, each parameter settable to values that control the appearance of an aspect of the desktop environment, said computer system being connected to a network, the method comprising:

• receiving from a user a first set of values for the parameters;
• storing the received first set of values in a storage device in said network;
• receiving from the user a second set of values for the parameters;
• storing the received second set of values in the storage device in said network;
• receiving from the user a selection of either the first set of values or the second set of values;
• when the selection of the first set of values is received from the user, setting the parameters to the values of first set of values;
• and
• when the selection of the second set of values is received from the user, setting the parameters to the values of the second set of values
• whereby the user can specify sets of values and whereby the computer system sets the parameters to the values of a set when the user selects that set of values so that the appearance of the desktop environment is modified in accordance with the selected set of values.