Patent ID: 6105063
Filing Date: 2000-08-15
Classification: G06F,H04L

Abstract:
In a network system comprising a network interconnecting a server and a plurality of user stations, wherein the server stores a plurality of user applications for downloading to user stations, a method of managing user configuration preferences for applications executing at a user station, said method comprisingrepresenting all users of the system in a tree hierarchy consisting of an AllUsers group node containing all system users, and a plurality of descendant group nodes each containing selected ones of the users that belong to the group represented by the descendant group node, each node containing configuration preferences for selected ones of the applications available on the system,assigning a group priority order for each user that is a member of more than one group,with respect to any given user requesting execution of a selected application, determining the group priority order for the user, andbuilding a set of configuration preferences from the tree bydetermining the first group from the group priority list from which a set of preferences can be derived for the selected application,coalescing the preferences into a set for the selected application by traversing the tree from the AllUsers group node to the first group, collecting the preferences specified at each node for the selected application and modifying the collected preferences as each node is traversed with the preferences specified at that node for the selected application.