Patent ID: 7319743

Claim:
A method of displaying a soft key label set on a telephone having a display monitor, the method comprising: storing a plurality of soft key label sets wherein one of the plurality of the soft key label sets has a function in a particular context and includes a text string; retrieving the one of the plurality of the soft key label sets based on the particular context from a call manager object; displaying the one of the plurality of the soft key label sets on the display such that the text string corresponds to a physical button on the telephone; changing the one of the plurality of the soft key label sets to another of the plurality of the soft key label sets when the context changes; using an index to retrieve a soft key label set wherein a value for the index is determined based on the particular context: and invalidating one or more text strings in said soft key label set using a valid mask associated with the index, wherein, while the one of the plurality of the soft key label sets is being changed, the physical button is deactivated.