Data oriented navigation within software applications
AssigneeLawson Software, Inc.
InventorsJohn Thomas Shultz, Richard D. Patton
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
Various embodiments as described and illustrated herein provide data oriented navigation within software applications. Some such embodiments include navigations within objects that make the navigations available to other objects. Objects in such embodiments include a representation of a software application data model to determine an object that is responsible for maintaining data. Thus, when an object receives a navigation request based on an item of data, the object receiving the request determines which object is responsible for maintaining the item of data and routes the navigation request to the appropriate object. That object then provides a list of available navigations that are displayed for selection within a user interface.
Claims18
A method comprising:
- receiving one or more object definitions, wherein an object definition includes a data definition and zero to many relations between the data definition and data definitions of other object definitions;
- creating a repository object for each object definition, wherein creating a repository object includes:
- if a user interface definition is not included in an object definition, generating a user interface definition as a function of the data definition,
- generating navigations within the repository object as a function of each relation between the object definition data definition and the data definitions of other object definitions, and
- storing the generated navigations in a navigation list, the navigation list navigation records including identifiers of other user interface definitions and one or more navigation validity determination rules;
- generating a class object as a function of each repository object, wherein each generated class object includes a set of methods to allow the navigations of one class object to be available to all class objects and information identifying the relations between the data of a class object to the data of all class objects;
- and
- storing the generated class object.
A system comprising:
- a processor;
- a memory coupled to the processor and storing instructions executable by the processor to:
- maintain a repository including one or more repository objects, wherein a repository object includes one or more user interface definitions and a navigation list;
- and
- maintain one or more class objects, each class object associated with a dataset for which it is responsible and associated with one of the repository objects, wherein a class object includes:
- information identifying relations between the dataset associated with the class object and datasets associated with other class objects;
- and
- a navigation list method operable on the processor to:
- receive a navigation request from a requestor including a data item identifier and data item value,
- retrieve the navigation list from the associated repository object associated with the class object and provide the navigation list the requestor, and
- wherein the navigation list identifies navigations within the repository object and a user interface associated with each navigation and a validity indicator associated with each navigation that limit which navigations may be displayed.
A computer readable storage media, with instructions thereon, which when executed by a machine, cause the machine to:
- receive one or more object definitions, wherein an object definition includes a data definition and zero to many relations between the data definition and data definitions of other object definitions;
- create a repository object for each object definition, wherein creating a repository object includes:
- if a user interface definition is not included in an object definition, generating a user interface definition as a function of the data definition,
- generating navigations within the repository object as a function of each relation between the object definition data definition and the data definitions of other object definitions, and
- storing the generated navigations in a navigation list, the navigation list navigation records including identifiers of other user interface definitions and one or more navigation validity determination rules;
- and
- generate a class object as a function of each repository object, wherein each generated class object includes a set of methods to allow the navigations of one class object to be available to all class objects and information identifying the relations between the data of a class object to the data of all class objects.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.