Patent ID: 6499040
Filing Date: 2002-12-24
Classification: G06F,Y10S

Abstract:
A method of operating a CAD/CAM/CAE computer system containing a plurality of software tools, each of said software tools being used by a user to perform one or more particular actions as part of the user's use of the software system, said method comprising:organizing said plurality of software tools into a plurality of workbenches, each workbench comprising a different subset of said plurality of software tools, each different subset comprising software tools generally required by the user to perform a specific task; defining a hierarchy among the workbenches of said plurality of workbenches, said hierarchy comprising at least one reference from at least one workbench to at least one other workbench; storing a record of said hierarchy on said computer system; and using a workbench to work on a document, wherein the document comprises one of a plurality of predetermined document types, and wherein the document is of a document type associated with the workbench.