Abstract:
In some implementations, a system causes a set of main tabs to be displayed at a first portion of a display. The system is configured to receive a user selection of a selected main tab. In response, the system causes a set of secondary tabs to be displayed at a second portion of the display. The system is configured to receive user input to manipulate the secondary tabs causing a rearrangement of the secondary tabs into a new order and/or causing one or more of the secondary tabs to be hidden. Based on the user input, the system causes the manipulated set of secondary tabs to be displayed and stores information defining the manipulated set of secondary tabs. Upon a subsequent access by the user of a database object associated with the selected main tab, the system causes the manipulated set of secondary tabs to be displayed.

Description:
PRIORITY DATA 
       [0001]    This patent document claims priority to co-pending and commonly assigned U.S. patent application Ser. No. 13/094,684 (Attorney Docket No. SLFCP056/163US), filed 26 Apr. 2011, and titled SIDE TAB NAVIGATION AND PAGE VIEWS PERSONALIZATION SYSTEMS AND METHODS, which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/328,125, filed 26 Apr. 2010, and U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/328,107, filed 26 Apr. 2010, all of which are incorporated herein by reference in their entireties and for all purposes. 
     
    
     COPYRIGHT NOTICE 
       [0002]    A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to copyright protection. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the United States Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all copyright rights whatsoever. 
       TECHNICAL FIELD 
       [0003]    The present disclosure relates generally to displaying data, and more particularly to configurable user interface displays for use with data accessible via an on-demand database and/or application service. 
       BACKGROUND 
       [0004]    In current display technologies for displaying database objects, a user is often provided with a set display of pre-selected fields for a displayed object or record. The displayed set of fields is typically set by an administrative user. An end user may have some flexibility in adjusting the display, but generally this is limited to selecting, on a recurring basis, which fields may be displayed. In general there are no mechanisms that allow a user to specify object display highlighting characteristics such as which fields are to be displayed, and in which order, in a prominent manner. 
     
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         [0005]    In the following drawings like reference numbers are used to refer to like elements. Although the following figures depict various examples of the disclosure, the disclosure is not limited to the examples depicted in the figures. 
           [0006]      FIG. 1  illustrates a block diagram of an environment wherein an on-demand database service might be used. 
           [0007]      FIG. 2  illustrates a block diagram of an embodiment of elements of  FIG. 1  and various possible interconnections between these elements according to an embodiment of the present disclosure. 
           [0008]      FIG. 3   a  illustrates an example of a side tab navigation tool on User Interface page according to one embodiment. 
           [0009]      FIG. 3   b  shows that the Feed side tab is selected and information regarding opportunity feeds is displayed in a region of the UI page. 
           [0010]      FIG. 3   c  shows that the Recommendations side tab is selected and information regarding recommendations is displayed in a region of the UI page 
           [0011]      FIG. 4  shows selection of a Detail side tab, demonstrating that the relative position of any side tab may be customized (e.g., via drag and drop functionality). 
           [0012]      FIG. 5  shows a sub-tab representation of a related list, and the actual related list to which it corresponds. Selecting (e.g., clicking) this sub-tab repositions page content to bring the related list into focus. 
           [0013]      FIG. 6  shows a user dragging the Cases sub-tab to the first position in the set of sub-tabs, and  FIG. 7  shows the result is an instantly revised related list ordering on the page, without a full page refresh. 
           [0014]      FIGS. 8-11  show a step-by-step interaction for hiding sub tabs according to one embodiment. 
           [0015]      FIG. 12  shows how a user can select (e.g., click on) the link to expand the hidden sub-tabs container, then select it again to collapse the container back down. 
           [0016]      FIG. 13  shows another way to collapse a box by selecting the bottom handle. 
           [0017]      FIG. 14  shows a way a user can unhide a related list from the page, using drag and drop. 
           [0018]      FIG. 15  shows the end result of a user moving Cases to the visible sub-tabs stack, in this case in the 4 th  list position. 
           [0019]      FIG. 16  shows moving multiple (consecutive or non-consecutive) sub-tabs together into the hidden sub-tabs container. 
           [0020]      FIG. 17  shows a user using a “flyout” element, which affords a quick way to preview (and even interact with) a related list without scrolling down the page according to one embodiment. 
       
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
       [0021]    The present disclosure provides systems and methods for displaying data, and more particularly configurable user interface displays using side tab navigation tools for use with displaying data accessible via an on-demand multi-tenant database and/or application service. 
         [0022]    As used herein, the term multi-tenant database system refers to those systems in which various elements of hardware and software of the database system may be shared by one or more customers. For example, a given application server (e g running an application process) may simultaneously process requests for a great number of customers, and a given database table may store rows for a potentially much greater number of customers. As used herein, the term query plan refers to a set of steps used to access information in a database system. 
       System Overview 
       [0023]      FIG. 1  illustrates a block diagram of an environment  10  wherein an on-demand database service might be used. Environment  10  may include user systems  12 , network  14 , system  16 , processor system  17 , application platform  18 , network interface  20 , tenant data storage  22 , system data storage  24 , program code  26 , and process space  28 . In other embodiments, environment  10  may not have all of the components listed and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above. 
         [0024]    Environment  10  is an environment in which an on-demand database service exists. User system  12  may be any machine or system that is used by a user to access a database user system. For example, any of user systems  12  can be a handheld computing device, a mobile phone, a laptop computer, a work station, and/or a network of computing devices. As illustrated in  FIG. 1  (and in more detail in  FIG. 2 ) user systems  12  might interact via a network  14  with an on-demand database service, which is system  16 . 
         [0025]    An on-demand database service, such as system  16 , is a database system that is made available to outside users that do not need to necessarily be concerned with building and/or maintaining the database system, but instead may be available for their use when the users need the database system (e.g., on the demand of the users). Some on-demand database services may store information from one or more tenants stored into tables of a common database image to form a multi-tenant database system (MTS). Accordingly, “on-demand database service  16 ” and “system  16 ” will be used interchangeably herein. A database image may include one or more database objects. A relational database management system (RDMS) or the equivalent may execute storage and retrieval of information against the database object(s). Application platform  18  may be a framework that allows the applications of system  16  to run, such as the hardware and/or software, e.g., the operating system. In an embodiment, on-demand database service  16  may include an application platform  18  that enables creation, managing and executing one or more applications developed by the provider of the on-demand database service, users accessing the on-demand database service via user systems  12 , or third party application developers accessing the on-demand database service via user systems  12 . 
         [0026]    The users of user systems  12  may differ in their respective capacities, and the capacity of a particular user system  12  might be entirely determined by permissions (permission levels) for the current user. For example, where a salesperson is using a particular user system  12  to interact with system  16 , that user system has the capacities allotted to that salesperson. However, while an administrator is using that user system to interact with system  16 , that user system has the capacities allotted to that administrator. In systems with a hierarchical role model, users at one permission level may have access to applications, data, and database information accessible by a lower permission level user, but may not have access to certain applications, database information, and data accessible by a user at a higher permission level. Thus, different users will have different capabilities with regard to accessing and modifying application and database information, depending on a user&#39;s security or permission level. 
         [0027]    Network  14  is any network or combination of networks of devices that communicate with one another. For example, network  14  can be any one or any combination of a LAN (local area network), WAN (wide area network), telephone network, wireless network, point-to-point network, star network, token ring network, hub network, or other appropriate configuration. As the most common type of computer network in current use is a TCP/IP (Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol) network, such as the global internetwork of networks often referred to as the “Internet” with a capital “I,” that network will be used in many of the examples herein. However, it should be understood that the networks that the present disclosure might use are not so limited, although TCP/IP is a frequently implemented protocol. 
         [0028]    User systems  12  might communicate with system  16  using TCP/IP and, at a higher network level, use other common Internet protocols to communicate, such as HTTP, FTP, AFS, WAP, etc. In an example where HTTP is used, user system  12  might include an HTTP client commonly referred to as a “browser” for sending and receiving HTTP messages to and from an HTTP server at system  16 . Such an HTTP server might be implemented as the sole network interface between system  16  and network  14 , but other techniques might be used as well or instead. In some implementations, the interface between system  16  and network  14  includes load sharing functionality, such as round-robin HTTP request distributors to balance loads and distribute incoming HTTP requests evenly over a plurality of servers. At least as for the users that are accessing that server, each of the plurality of servers has access to the MTS&#39; data; however, other alternative configurations may be used instead. 
         [0029]    In one embodiment, system  16 , shown in  FIG. 1 , implements a web-based customer relationship management (CRM) system. For example, in one embodiment, system  16  includes application servers configured to implement and execute CRM software applications (application processes) as well as provide related data, code, forms, web pages and other information to and from user systems  12  and to store to, and retrieve from, a database system related data, objects, and Webpage content. With a multi-tenant system, data for multiple tenants may be stored in the same physical database object, however, tenant data typically is arranged so that data of one tenant is kept logically separate from that of other tenants so that one tenant does not have access to another tenant&#39;s data, unless such data is expressly shared. In certain embodiments, system  16  implements applications other than, or in addition to, a CRM application. For example, system  16  may provide tenant access to multiple hosted (standard and custom) applications, including a CRM application. User (or third party developer) applications, which may or may not include CRM, may be supported by the application platform  18 , which manages creation, storage of the applications into one or more database objects and executing of the applications in a virtual machine in the process space of the system  16 . 
         [0030]    One arrangement for elements of system  16  is shown in  FIG. 1 , including a network interface  20 , application platform  18 , tenant data storage  22  for tenant data  23 , system data storage  24  for system data  25  accessible to system  16  and possibly multiple tenants, program code  26  for implementing various functions of system  16 , and a process space  28  for executing MTS system processes and tenant-specific processes, such as running applications as part of an application hosting service. Additional processes that may execute on system  16  include database indexing processes. 
         [0031]    Several elements in the system shown in  FIG. 1  include conventional, well-known elements that are explained only briefly here. For example, each user system  12  could include a desktop personal computer, workstation, laptop, PDA, cell phone, or any wireless access protocol (WAP) enabled device or any other computing device capable of interfacing directly or indirectly to the Internet or other network connection. User system  12  typically runs an HTTP client, e.g., a browsing program, such as Microsoft&#39;s Internet Explorer browser, Netscape&#39;s Navigator browser, Opera&#39;s browser, or a WAP-enabled browser in the case of a cell phone, PDA or other wireless device, or the like, allowing a user (e.g., subscriber of the multi-tenant database system) of user system  12  to access, process and view information, pages and applications available to it from system  16  over network  14 . Each user system  12  also typically includes one or more user interface devices, such as a keyboard, a mouse, trackball, touch pad, touch screen, pen or the like, for interacting with a graphical user interface (GUI) provided by the browser on a display (e.g., a monitor screen, LCD display, etc.) in conjunction with pages, forms, applications and other information provided by system  16  or other systems or servers. For example, the user interface device can be used to access data and applications hosted by system  16 , and to perform searches on stored data, and otherwise allow a user to interact with various GUI pages that may be presented to a user. As discussed above, embodiments are suitable for use with the Internet, which refers to a specific global internetwork of networks. However, it should be understood that other networks can be used instead of the Internet, such as an intranet, an extranet, a virtual private network (VPN), a non-TCP/IP based network, any LAN or WAN or the like. 
         [0032]    According to one embodiment, each user system  12  and all of its components are operator configurable using applications, such as a browser, including computer code run using a central processing unit such as an Intel Pentium® processor or the like. Similarly, system  16  (and additional instances of an MTS, where more than one is present) and all of their components might be operator configurable using application(s) including computer code to run using a central processing unit such as processor system  17 , which may include an Intel Pentium® processor or the like, and/or multiple processor units. A computer program product embodiment includes a machine-readable storage medium (media) having instructions stored thereon/in which can be used to program a computer to perform any of the processes of the embodiments described herein. Computer code for operating and configuring system  16  to intercommunicate and to process web pages, applications and other data and media content as described herein are preferably downloaded and stored on a hard disk, but the entire program code, or portions thereof, may also be stored in any other volatile or non-volatile memory medium or device as is well known, such as a ROM or RAM, or provided on any media capable of storing program code, such as any type of rotating media including floppy disks, optical discs, digital versatile disk (DVD), compact disk (CD), microdrive, and magneto-optical disks, and magnetic or optical cards, nanosystems (including molecular memory ICs), or any type of media or device suitable for storing instructions and/or data. Additionally, the entire program code, or portions thereof, may be transmitted and downloaded from a software source over a transmission medium, e.g., over the Internet, or from another server, as is well known, or transmitted over any other conventional network connection as is well known (e.g., extranet, VPN, LAN, etc.) using any communication medium and protocols (e.g., TCP/IP, HTTP, HTTPS, Ethernet, etc.) as are well known. It will also be appreciated that computer code for implementing embodiments of the present disclosure can be implemented in any programming language that can be executed on a client system and/or server or server system such as, for example, C, C++, HTML, any other markup language, Java™, JavaScript, ActiveX, any other scripting language, such as VBScript, and many other programming languages as are well known may be used. (Java™ is a trademark of Sun Microsystems, Inc.). 
         [0033]    According to one embodiment, each system  16  is configured to provide web pages, forms, applications, data and media content to user (client) systems  12  to support the access by user systems  12  as tenants of system  16 . As such, system  16  provides security mechanisms to keep each tenant&#39;s data separate unless the data is shared. If more than one MTS is used, they may be located in close proximity to one another (e.g., in a server farm located in a single building or campus), or they may be distributed at locations remote from one another (e.g., one or more servers located in city A and one or more servers located in city B). As used herein, each MTS could include one or more logically and/or physically connected servers distributed locally or across one or more geographic locations. Additionally, the term “server” is meant to include a computer system, including processing hardware and process space(s), and an associated storage system and database application (e.g., OODBMS or RDBMS) as is well known in the art. It should also be understood that “server system” and “server” are often used interchangeably herein. Similarly, the database object described herein can be implemented as single databases, a distributed database, a collection of distributed databases, a database with redundant online or offline backups or other redundancies, etc., and might include a distributed database or storage network and associated processing intelligence. 
         [0034]      FIG. 2  also illustrates environment  10 . However, in  FIG. 2  elements of system  16  and various interconnections in an embodiment are further illustrated.  FIG. 2  shows that user system  12  may include processor system  12 A, memory system  12 B, input system  12 C, and output system  12 D.  FIG. 2  shows network  14  and system  16 .  FIG. 2  also shows that system  16  may include tenant data storage  22 , tenant data  23 , system data storage  24 , system data  25 , User Interface (UI)  30 , Application Program Interface (API)  32 , PL/SOQL  34 , save routines  36 , application setup mechanism  38 , applications servers  100   1 - 100   N , system process space  102 , tenant process spaces  104 , tenant management process space  110 , tenant storage area  112 , user storage  114 , and application metadata  116 . In other embodiments, environment  10  may not have the same elements as those listed above and/or may have other elements instead of, or in addition to, those listed above. 
         [0035]    User system  12 , network  14 , system  16 , tenant data storage  22 , and system data storage  24  were discussed above in  FIG. 1 . Regarding user system  12 , processor system  12 A may be any combination of one or more processors. Memory system  12 B may be any combination of one or more memory devices, short term, and/or long term memory. Input system  12 C may be any combination of input devices, such as one or more keyboards, mice, trackballs, scanners, cameras, and/or interfaces to networks. Output system  12 D may be any combination of output devices, such as one or more monitors, printers, and/or interfaces to networks. As shown by  FIG. 2 , system  16  may include a network interface  20  (of  FIG. 1 ) implemented as a set of HTTP application servers  100 , an application platform  18 , tenant data storage  22 , and system data storage  24 . Also shown is system process space  102 , including individual tenant process spaces  104  and a tenant management process space  110 . Each application server  100  may be configured to tenant data storage  22  and the tenant data  23  therein, and system data storage  24  and the system data  25  therein to serve requests of user systems  12 . The tenant data  23  might be divided into individual tenant storage areas  112 , which can be either a physical arrangement and/or a logical arrangement of data. Within each tenant storage area  112 , user storage  114  and application metadata  116  might be similarly allocated for each user. For example, a copy of a user&#39;s most recently used (MRU) items might be stored to user storage  114 . Similarly, a copy of MRU items for an entire organization that is a tenant might be stored to tenant storage area  112 . A UI  30  provides a user interface and an API  32  provides an application programmer interface to system  16  resident processes to users and/or developers at user systems  12 . The tenant data and the system data may be stored in various databases, such as one or more Oracle™ databases. 
         [0036]    Application platform  18  includes an application setup mechanism  38  that supports application developers&#39; creation and management of applications, which may be saved as metadata into tenant data storage  22  by save routines  36  for execution by subscribers as one or more tenant process spaces  104  managed by tenant management process  110  for example. Invocations to such applications may be coded using PL/SOQL  34  that provides a programming language style interface extension to API  32 . A detailed description of some PL/SOQL language embodiments is discussed in commonly owned co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application 60/828,192 entitled, PROGRAMMING LANGUAGE METHOD AND SYSTEM FOR EXTENDING APIS TO EXECUTE IN CONJUNCTION WITH DATABASE APIS, by Craig Weissman, filed Oct. 4, 2006, which is incorporated in its entirety herein for all purposes. Invocations to applications may be detected by one or more system processes, which manages retrieving application metadata  116  for the subscriber making the invocation and executing the metadata as an application in a virtual machine. 
         [0037]    Each application server  100  may be communicably coupled to database systems, e.g., having access to system data  25  and tenant data  23 , via a different network connection. For example, one application server  100   1  might be coupled via the network  14  (e.g., the Internet), another application server  100   N-1  might be coupled via a direct network link, and another application server  100   N  might be coupled by yet a different network connection. Transfer Control Protocol and Internet Protocol (TCP/IP) are typical protocols for communicating between application servers  100  and the database system. However, it will be apparent to one skilled in the art that other transport protocols may be used to optimize the system depending on the network interconnect used. 
         [0038]    In certain embodiments, each application server  100  is configured to handle requests for any user associated with any organization that is a tenant. Because it is desirable to be able to add and remove application servers from the server pool at any time for any reason, there is preferably no server affinity for a user and/or organization to a specific application server  100 . 
         [0039]    In one embodiment, therefore, an interface system implementing a load balancing function (e.g., an F5 Big-IP load balancer) is communicably coupled between the application servers  100  and the user systems  12  to distribute requests to the application servers  100 . In one embodiment, the load balancer uses a least connections algorithm to route user requests to the application servers  100 . Other examples of load balancing algorithms, such as round robin and observed response time, also can be used. For example, in certain embodiments, three consecutive requests from the same user could hit three different application servers  100 , and three requests from different users could hit the same application server  100 . In this manner, system  16  is multi-tenant, wherein system  16  handles storage of, and access to, different objects, data and applications across disparate users and organizations. 
         [0040]    As an example of storage, one tenant might be a company that employs a sales force where each salesperson uses system  16  to manage their sales process. Thus, a user might maintain contact data, leads data, customer follow-up data, performance data, goals and progress data, etc., all applicable to that user&#39;s personal sales process (e.g., in tenant data storage  22 ). In an example of a MTS arrangement, since all of the data and the applications to access, view, modify, report, transmit, calculate, etc., can be maintained and accessed by a user system having nothing more than network access, the user can manage his or her sales efforts and cycles from any of many different user systems. For example, if a salesperson is visiting a customer and the customer has Internet access in their lobby, the salesperson can obtain critical updates as to that customer while waiting for the customer to arrive in the lobby. 
         [0041]    While each user&#39;s data might be separate from other users&#39; data regardless of the employers of each user, some data might be organization-wide data shared or accessible by a plurality of users or all of the users for a given organization that is a tenant. Thus, there might be some data structures managed by system  16  that are allocated at the tenant level while other data structures might be managed at the user level. Because an MTS might support multiple tenants including possible competitors, the MTS should have security protocols that keep data, applications, and application use separate. Also, because many tenants may opt for access to an MTS rather than maintain their own system, redundancy, up-time, and backup are additional functions that may be implemented in the MTS. In addition to user-specific data and tenant-specific data, system  16  might also maintain system level data usable by multiple tenants or other data. Such system level data might include industry reports, news, postings, and the like that are sharable among tenants. 
         [0042]    In certain embodiments, user systems  12  (which may be client systems) communicate with application servers  100  to request and update system-level and tenant-level data from system  16  that may require sending one or more queries to tenant data storage  22  and/or system data storage  24 . System  16  (e.g., an application server  100  in system  16 ) automatically generates one or more SQL statements (e.g., one or more SQL queries) that are designed to access the desired information. System data storage  24  may generate query plans to access the requested data from the database. 
         [0043]    A table generally contains one or more data categories logically arranged as columns or fields in a viewable schema. Each row or record of a table contains an instance of data for each category defined by the fields. For example, a CRM database may include a table that describes a customer with fields for basic contact information such as name, address, phone number, fax number, etc. Another table might describe a purchase order, including fields for information such as customer, product, sale price, date, etc. 
         [0044]    In some multi-tenant database systems, tenants may be allowed to create and store custom objects, or they may be allowed to customize standard entities or objects, for example by creating custom fields for standard objects, including custom index fields. U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/817,161, filed Apr. 2, 2004, entitled “Custom Entities and Fields in a Multi-Tenant Database System,” and which is hereby incorporated herein by reference, teaches systems and methods for creating custom objects as well as customizing standard objects in a multi-tenant database system. 
         [0045]    In general, it is desirable to provide systems and methods that allow users to configure the display layout or page view of data to be displayed. Accordingly, in one embodiment, side tab navigation tools are provided that allow users to drag and drop representations of page elements to new locations, and into or out of a section designated for elements to be hidden from the page. Additionally, “jump links” and “flyout previews” afford quick access to page content in some embodiments. 
       Side Tab Navigation 
       [0046]    According to one embodiment, a side tab navigation tool is provided to allow users to navigate to different parts of a data record and personalize the organization of certain aspects of displayed views of records.  FIG. 3   a  illustrates an example of a side tab navigation tab tool  310  (shown in rectangular box) on User Interface page  300  according to one embodiment. In one embodiment, side tab navigation tool  310  contains one or more “side tab” display bars (e.g., Detail tab  315 , Feed tab  320 , and Recommendations tab  325 ) and “sub-tab” display bars (e.g., Notes &amp; Attachments sub-tab  316 , Cases sub-tab  317 , Competitors sub-tab  318 , etc.) as shown in  FIG. 3   a . In general, tabs (including sub tabs and side tabs) allow access to stored data. In certain aspects, upon selection of a side tab by a user, the selected side tab is highlighted or otherwise prominently displayed. In certain aspects, the selected side tab (and corresponding sub tabs) are highlighted using the corresponding record object&#39;s color (user configurable). For example, if the main Opportunities tab  330  is initially selected, and then the Detail side tab  315  is selected, the Details side tab and all sub tabs (e.g. sub tabs  316 ,  317 ,  318 , etc) are highlighted in the same manner or in the same color as the main tab  330  (e.g., yellow-orange for the Opportunity object). The selected state determines what content is displayed in the panel  340  to the right of the side navigation tool  310 . All other regions of the page remain unchanged. For example, in  FIG. 3   a , the Detail side tab for the main Opportunity tab  330  has been selected (and is highlighted) and stored detail information for the Opportunity object is displayed in region  340  of window  300 . In  FIG. 3   b , the Feed side tab  320  has been selected and information regarding opportunity feeds is displayed in region  340  of window  300 . Similarly, in  FIG. 3   c , the Recommendations side tab  325  has been selected and stored information about recommendations associated with the Opportunity object is displayed in region  340  of window  300 . In certain aspects, sub tabs may be hidden by selection of an element (e.g., triangle toggle) in the corresponding side tab display bar, however, selection of the element (e.g., triangle toggle) of a side tab need not result in selection of the side tab, nor would it result in the hiding of actual related lists on the page. 
         [0047]    In one embodiment, side tabs can be re-ordered. In certain aspects, a user can drag and drop side tabs to define any order desired. This is a personalization feature; upon selection of an order by a user, the system stores the user&#39;s side tab order preferences to the database. In certain aspects, once applied to any given record, the order preference rule is applied to all records of this object type (in this case, all Opportunity records), as viewed by the current user, regardless of underlying record layout. In certain aspects, whichever side tab is in the first position is the one that will be displayed by default when the user first is presented with any record detail page for that object type.  FIG. 4  shows three different orderings of the three side tabs of  FIG. 3 . The Detail side tab is selected in all three examples, as reflected by the color of the displayed side tab bar (inherited from its object type&#39;s color; shown as highlighted in the black and white figure), meaning that the user would see Detail-related content to the right in region  340  in all 3 examples. A single click on the Feed side tab in any of these cases would select the Feed side tab, such that its color would change and the content area  340  would display Feed-relevant content. 
         [0048]    In certain aspects, sub-tabs, e.g., children of a side tab, are miniature representations of related lists. Sub-tabs have a label and, as shown in square brackets, a record count for that related list (e.g., “Cases [2]” means there are 2 cases related to the current record) as shown in  FIG. 5 . In certain aspects, sub-tab order exactly reflects related list order on the page in panel  340 . In this example shown in  FIG. 5 , Cases is listed as the second sub-tab (under Notes and Attachments) and appears second in the stack of sub-tabs after the displayed detail information in panel  340 . 
         [0049]    Like side tabs, in certain aspects, sub-tabs can be dragged and dropped to define a new order. This too is a personalization feature. Once applied to a given record, the preference rule is stored to the database and is applied to all records of this object type. However, because different records of a single object type may be displayed using a variety of layouts, with different combinations and orderings of related lists, algorithmic rules for applying rules locally (on a single record/layout) to a global scope (all records/layouts for that object type) for a given user may be applied. (See, e.g., “Page Views Personalization” section below). In the example shown in  FIG. 6 , the user drags the Cases sub-tab to the first position in the set of sub-tabs and the result is an instantly revised related list ordering on the page, without the need for a full page refresh, as shown in  FIG. 7 . 
         [0050]    In certain aspects, a sub-tab, and its related list counterparts, can be hidden from the record view altogether (like sub-tab reordering, this is also a personalization feature with local-to-global rule application). Dropping a sub-tab into a special container, presented just-in-time as the sub-tab is being dragged, hides the sub-tab from the page in one embodiment.  FIGS. 8-11  show a step-by-step interaction for hiding sub tabs according to one embodiment.  FIG. 8  shows a user hovering over the Cases sub-tab.  FIG. 9  shows the user beginning to drag the Cases sub-tab, at which time a hide container  910  appears at the bottom of the list of sub-tabs.  FIG. 10  shows that as the user drags the sub-tab over the hide container  910 , the container changes color (or is otherwise prominently highlighted) to show to the user that it is a drop target and to confirm a valid drop position.  FIG. 11  shows that when the user drops (releases) the dragged Cases sub-tab over the hide container, the sub-tab disappears from the side navigation bar, and the corresponding Cases related list disappears from the page. The hide container also closes and disappears. 
         [0051]    When there are hidden related lists on a page, the side navigation tab features a link that displays how many related lists are hidden. In certain aspects, this link also acts as a toggle for opening and closing a box or container that contains hidden sub-tabs. At the beginning of the previous step-by-step example, in  FIG. 8 , there is a link reading “3 Hidden” just below the stack of sub-tabs. Once the Cases sub-tab has been dragged and dropped into the hide container, the link reads “4 Hidden,” as shown in  FIG. 11 , indicating there are now 4 sub-tabs (and corresponding related lists) currently hidden from the page view. As shown in  FIG. 12 , a user can select (e.g., click on) the link to expand the hidden sub-tab container, then select it again to collapse it down. Another way to collapse the container is to click the bottom handle as shown in  FIG. 13 . 
         [0052]    To unhide a related list from the page, a user may drag the list back from the hide container and position it back in the desired position in the visible sub-tabs stack. As shown in  FIG. 14 , a user is moving Cases to the fourth position in the visible sub-tabs stack, with the end result shown in  FIG. 15 . In certain aspects, multiple (consecutive or non-consecutive) sub-tabs may be selected and moved together, e.g., using CTRL+click (CMD+click on Mac) or SHIFT+click functionality, as shown in  FIG. 16 . 
         [0053]    In certain aspects, as shown in  FIG. 17 , each sub-tab is provided with a “flyout” element, which affords a quick way to preview (and even interact with) a related list without scrolling down the page. Alternately, a user may select, e.g., click on, a sub-tab&#39;s link to jump directly to that related list further down the page. 
       Page Views Personalization 
     Related List Customization 
       [0054]    According to one embodiment, embodiments that enable user-level configuration of related lists in a detail page are provided. A current method presents a user with a global view of all related lists that are visible to the user. This may be more than the related lists the user sees on a single detail page, if the user has multiple layouts mapped to the user via record types. Record types allow the system to present different versions of a detail page for a particular object type to different users, based on their profile definitions, or to the same user, based on other aspects of the business context. Variations might include the inclusion or exclusion of one or more fields, field position within the layout, and so on. In that method, the user is asked to rank all of their related lists in priority order. From then on, when the user views any given record, the related lists on that layout will be shown in that order, while skipping any related lists that aren&#39;t on the current layout. 
         [0055]    Because it is desirable to allow users to change the order of related lists using direct manipulation, such as through drag and drop directly on the detail page, a method to reconcile this interaction with the existing global customization list is needed. 
       (Method 1) Incremental Customization 
       [0056]    In one embodiment, drag and drop functionality is provided to allow the user to drag one or multiple related lists, e.g., using both shift+click and control+click, to allow users to move groups of contiguous and non-contiguous related lists, respectively. When a user drags a related list or group of related lists to a new position within the stack, this information is translated into changes to the global list of related list relative ordering. To accomplish this, the system considers the position of the related list(s) being moved relative to the overall stack (known from here on as the “span”, referring to the group&#39;s high/low extreme positions within the stack). For each related list in the span, its priority index in the global list is determined. Depending on whether the move was above or below the span, the global priority index of the moved related list(s) is changed to be either immediately above or immediately below the indexes of the span. Depending on the implementation, the numerical definition of “above” and “below” may differ based on whether a larger number index indicates a higher or lower priority. Furthermore, in one aspect, if a user moves a multi-selected group of related lists, they are treated as one contiguous, ordered group when they are re-positioned, regardless of whether they were originally contiguous. 
         [0057]    There are multiple ways to implement this, which are dependent on the computing systems involved. In an on-demand model accessed through a web browser, as an example, one embodiment uses a division of responsibilities between the user&#39;s interface system in the browser (aka the client) and the server which handles requests and persists changes to the multitenant database. In the incremental customization model, the client browser system translates the user&#39;s actions into programmatic calls to the server, which then persists those changes into the global priority list stored in the database. 
         [0058]    As an illustration, consider a list of 3 related lists on a given layout, identified from top to bottom (in priority order) as A, B and D. The global priority list is a superset which contains the 4 prioritized related lists A, B, C and D (C exists in the global list because it is on another layout). The user is viewing a record with the aforementioned layout and decides to shift-select B and D and move them above A. The client-side UI determines that B and D are the items to be moved and the “span” that they move across is simply the singleton set of {A}. The client then translates this into a remote method call to the server. In one embodiment, an asynchronous HTTP request is sent to the server with the following parameters: 
         [0059]    moved — 0=B 
         [0060]    moved — 1=D
       relative — 0=A       
 
         [0062]    position=ABOVE 
         [0063]    The number of parameters with the “moved” and “relative” prefixes varies according to the number of items moved and the size of the span, respectively. The ordering of the items is indicated by the appended underscore character and zero-based numerical index. While “relative” represents the span, it does not strictly require an indication of the ordering, as their global indexes need to be found in the global list known on the server. The “position” parameter dictates the position of the moved items in relation to the span. The server receives these parameters, looks up the global indexes of the “relative” items, and assigns the new indexes to the “moved” items. One method of performing this operation in a system that uses integer indexes is to temporarily assign decimal indexes to the moved items, resort all items by those indexes, and then reassign new indexes to all items. So in this example, where the global indexes start out as A=1, B=2, C=3, and D=4, the move could temporarily assign B=0.1 and D=0.2, resulting in a reordering of B=0.1, D=0.2, A=1, C=2, which is finally reassigned as B=1, D=2, A=3, C=4. 
         [0064]    Another operation is to hide certain items from view, by dragging them to a certain area in the user interface. In one embodiment, this is accomplished on the server by using a separate server call to pass in an unordered list of items to hide. These items are then deleted from the master customization list and the indexes are reassigned to fill in the gaps. To accomplish un-hiding, where the items are dragged back into the list, the previously-described server call may be (re-)used to unhide the elements in the same method as the reordering, where the “moved” parameters are the un-hidden items. 
         [0065]    It should be noted that, in a web-based system where a user may have multiple browsers or sessions open, there may be certain views that have an out-of-date representation of the global customization. In this case, any customization requests that are sent from these clients are fulfilled to the best extent possible, and any invalid operations are ignored. 
       (Method 2) Initial Ordering 
       [0066]    Because a user might use drag and drop only, a way to decide on the initial ordering for the master list is needed. For most users who will only be configured to view records through a single layout definition, this is straightforward. For users who may use multiple layout definitions, in one embodiment, a scoring algorithm is used to decide the initial global ordering of the related lists, which is applied “just in time” when the user makes the first drag and drop customization, if no customization already exists. 
         [0067]    Appendices A and B illustrate various embodiments and aspects of page views personalization. U.S. Pat. No. 7,774,366, entitled “Systems and Methods for Implementing Multi-Application Tabs and Tab Sets” discusses aspects of tabs and tab sets, and is hereby incorporated by reference herein for all purposes. 
         [0068]    While the disclosure has been described by way of example and in terms of the specific embodiments, it is to be understood that the disclosure is not limited to the disclosed embodiments. To the contrary, it is intended to cover various modifications and similar arrangements as would be apparent to those skilled in the art. Therefore, the scope of the appended claims should be accorded the broadest interpretation so as to encompass all such modifications and similar arrangements.