Christopher Derek Beck

US Patent:

6493704, Dec 10, 2002

Filed:

Sep 13, 1999

Appl. No.:

09/394664

Inventors:

Michael Hichwa - Washington DC
Christopher Beck - Ashburn VA
Leo Nishio - San Francisco CA

Assignee:

Oracle Corporation - Redwood Shores CA

International Classification:

G06F 1730

US Classification:

707 3, 707 1, 707 2, 707100, 707 10

Abstract:

The present invention provides a generic mechanism for enabling a user to develop one or more components. According to the invention, there is provided a generic builder engine which solicits from a developer, through a simple dialog, all of the information needed to define an instance of a component. The builder engine solicits the information by generating one or more display pages based upon predefined metadata. This metadata specifies what information needs to be solicited from the developer to define an instance of that type of component, and how that information should be solicited. Based upon this metadata, the generic builder engine dynamically generates one or more display pages to solicit the necessary information from the developer. Implementing the builder engine in this generic manner is quite advantageous because it makes it possible for a single engine to be used to guide a developer through the defining process for all possible types of components. To add a new type of component, all that needs to be done is to add a set of predefined metadata describing the new component type.

US Patent:

6507833, Jan 14, 2003

Filed:

Sep 13, 1999

Appl. No.:

09/395075

Inventors:

Michael Hichwa - Washington DC
Christopher Beck - Ashburn VA
Leo Nishio - San Francisco CA

Assignee:

Oracle Corporation - Redwood Shores CA

International Classification:

G06F 1730

US Classification:

707 1, 707 2, 707 3, 707 10, 7071041

Abstract:

A mechanism is provided for dynamically rendering a component instance at run time. According to the invention, a rendering engine is provided for each type of component that can be rendered, and each engine is responsible for rendering all instances of that component type. When it comes time to render a component instance, the rendering engine associated with that instance is invoked. When invoked, the rendering engine receives a set of metadata associated with the component instance, which specifies the attribute values for that instance. Based upon the metadata, the rendering engine determines, at run time, a format for the instance, and renders the instance in accordance with the determined format. By rendering the instance at run time based purely upon metadata, the present invention makes it possible to store only the metadata associated with the instance. Unlike the prior art, it is not necessary to store a component as a large static entity.