System provided child window controls

Details

Inventors: Chew, Chee H.; Konzen, Neil; Guzak, Christopher J.; Laney, Stuart T.; Pitt, III, George H.; Ellison-Taylor, Ian M.; Gery, Ron O.;
Assignee: Microsoft Corporation (Redmond, WA)
Primary Examiner: Nguyen; Phu K.
Assistant Examiner:
Attorney, Agent or Firm: Christensen O'Connor Johnson & Kindness PLLC

New varieties of child window controls are provided as system resources that application programs may exploit. The preferred embodiment of the present invention provides a dynamic link library (DLL) for implementing the new child window controls as part of an operating system. The new child window controls include a header bar control for providing header bars in application programs. The new controls also include a hot key control that allows a user to view and edit hot key combinations. The new controls further include a tab control for establishing tabs that differentiate amongst pages in user interfaces provided by application programs. An image list data type is defined and functions are provided for manipulating the image list data type. Image lists include multiple like-sized images that are stored efficiently in a single bitmap.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION In accordance with a first aspect of the present invention, a method is practiced in a computer system that has an input device, a video display and a processor that runs at least one application program.
In accordance with the method of this aspect of the present invention, code for implementing a new child window control is provided as a system resource that the application program may use.
The code may be for implementing a header bar control that is a multi-piece child window control that displays headers as a bar.
Alternatively, the code may be for implementing a tab control.
The tab control displays tabs for differentiating pages that are to be displayed by the application program.
Furthermore, the code may be for a hot key control that allows a user to edit and view a key combination that constitutes a hot key.
The hot key invokes activity in the application program.
A system resource is then used to display the associated control.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention, an image list data type is provided for an image list.
Each image list is an indexed list of bitmaps.
An image list is provided that is of the image list data type, and an image in the provided image list is displayed on the video display.

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