Patent ID: 8015509

Claim:
A method for preventing an unintentionally closing of a window comprising: providing a user selectable mechanism within a graphical user interface for locking and unlocking a plurality of different types of user selectable, visually presented controls of a window within a graphical user interface, on a per control type basis; establishing a plurality of user configured settings to automatically lock/unlock at least one of said presented control of a designated type, referred to herein as the window control, depending upon a deterministic system condition for a percentage of the window area that is viewable to the user as contrasted against a portion of a window area that is obscured by another different window within the graphical user interface; detecting a change in said deterministic system condition, which triggers a change of said locked state based upon said user configured settings; automatically firing an event based upon said detecting of said change; detecting the event associated with said user selectable mechanism that changes a locking state of the window control of the designated type without affecting other ones of the different types of the controls; and responsive to the event, changing a locking state of each of the presented controls of the designated type within said window without affecting any other type of control of the window, wherein locking states comprise at least a locked state and an unlocked state, wherein when each of the controls of the designated type in said window is in a locked state a user is prevented from performing an action related to the control and wherein each control in a locked state includes a control specific visual indicator that indicates to users that the specific one of the user selectable controls is locked, and when each of the controls of the designated type in said window is in an unlocked state, a user is permitted to perform the action related to the control, wherein the different types of control comprise a close control type that closes the window, a minimize control type that minimizes the window, and a maximize/restore control type that selectively maximizes the window.