Patent ID: 6292809
Filing Date: 2001-09-18
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A method of selecting cells in a table, comprising:selecting a starting cell;traversing a path from the starting cell to a current cell including identifying a cell at the end of the traversed path as a current cell and identifying a cell immediately preceding the current cell in the traversed path as a previous cell; anddetermining a selection of cells based on the starting cell, the current cell and the previous cell and positional change resulting from movement along the path from the previous cell to the current cell includingidentifying a first rule for making a selection of cells, the first rule requiring all cells of a joined cell to be included in a valid selection;determining if a selection defined by the first and last cell satisfies the first rule;if so, returning the selection as the selection of cells;and, if not,identifying a new selection different from the selection defined by the first and last cell; anddetermining if the new selection satisfies the first rule and if so, returning the new selection as the selection of cells.