Patent ID: 7533345

Claim:
A method of managing visibility of GUI components in an application comprising: providing a user interface of a visibility manager for selection, for each of a plurality of profiles, of one of a plurality of visibility states for each of at least a subset of the GUI components; and for displaying a user interface screen of the application according to an applied one of the plurality of profiles: initializing the application, wherein the initializing includes: starting the application; and building the user interface screen of the application with all of the GUI components set as visible; invoking the visibility manager to: determine, based on the selected visibility states of the applied profile, which of the GUI components of the built user interface screen are to be set as not visible; and prior to any display of the built user interface screen, revise the built user interface screen based on the determination; and displaying the revised user interface screen of the application; wherein the invoking the visibility manager is by: reading the plurality of profiles, processing the plurality of profiles, reading and processing a user configuration based on the plurality of profiles, and activating the applied profile by: selecting an identification of a particular GUI component, locating the identification in a mapping table, checking a state of the particular GUI component, comparing the state to the applied profile, changing the state if not in agreement with the applied profile, and repeating locating the identification, checking the state of the particular GUI component, comparing the state and changing the state for any remaining additional identifications of additional GUI components.