METHOD FOR ASSOCIATING DATA BEARING OBJECTS WITH USER INTERFACE OBJECTS

摘要

The present method provides objects called association objects (350) that ar e interposed between a controlling object (340) and each user interface object (360). The association object for a particular kind of user interface object contains code that allows the association object to interact with the specif ic kind of user interface object. Each association object also presents a standard interface to a controlling object, regardless of the kind of user interface object with which the association object is associated. The association object takes care of any conversion or translation that must be performed to convert a data value sent by the controlling object into an appropriate value that can be displayed by the user interface object. Accordingly, instead of requiring different interface code for each kind of user interface object used (360), a controlling object (340) requires only a single block of interface code for communicating with all association object s (350).