US 7,461,340 B1Granted

Integrated decorative panels

AssigneeMicrosoft Corporation

InventorsRobert J. Mauceri, Jr., Charles Y. Bissonnette, Aaron S. Filner

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Abstract

Table elements, such as HTML elements, are automatically formatted relative to a change in visual appearance of a displayed decorative panel. The decorative panel comprises a plurality of separate but visually related regions defined by the table elements, and organized in predefined logical relationships to each other. A visual change causes an automatic revision to one or more attributes of the table elements that define the regions affected by the visual change. The visual change and automatic formatting are preferably accomplished with a Web page design tool, which identifies the decorative panel from comments associated with the table elements but do not affect rendering by a conventional browser. Visual properties of the decorative panel are mapped to the attributes, so that when the visual appearance is changed, a corresponding attribute is automatically revised. The resulting revised table elements are validated against predetermined inference rules that define valid patterns of regions.

Claims12

Dependent claims

In a computing environment wherein decorative panels are displayed using cells of software tables, wherein cells of software tables have at least one of attributes of the individual cells specified or images displayed in the cells such that a plurality of cells of software tables appear as a single unit forming at least a portion of a decorative panel, a method of automatically updating at least one of attributes of individual cells or images in individual cells to change the appearance of a decorative panel, the method comprising:

displaying a decorative panel by displaying cells of a software table, wherein the software table comprises HTML table code, where cells of the software table spatially correspond to spatial regions of the decorative panel, and wherein displaying a software table is performed such that cells of the software table are displayed as a single unit forming at least a portion of the decorative panel, by displaying cells with at least one of attributes specified for a cell, or images in cells displayed to form a single unit;
receiving user input specifying a change in the appearance of the decorative panel;
mapping changes in the appearance of the decorative panel to cells in the software table;
automatically revising at least one of attributes of cells or images in cells, without a user needing to manipulate individual cells, to correspond to the changes in the appearance of the decorative panel;
and
evaluating the HTML table code against predetermined inference rules to determine if the HTML table code corresponds to a predefined pattern recognized as a valid decorative panel.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.