Patent ID: 7409642

Claim:
In a computer system having an operating system platform, a user interface framework system for rendering data according to a visual style defined for the data type, the system comprising: a plurality of data objects, wherein the plurality of data objects have one or more data fields; a style definition module for holding one or more visual style definitions to be selectively applied to the one or more data fields of the plurality of data objects; a style lookup module for locating an associated visual style definition; a binding module for binding the one or more data fields to one of a properties of the associated visual style definition; a tree assembler module for generating a visual tree which is an internal representation of a combination of the one or more data fields and the associated visual style definition; a user interface element factory having additional user interface elements; a layout engine for adding one or more of the additional user interface elements to the visual tree after the associated visual style definition has been bound to the one or more data fields, wherein the layout engine is able to place said additional user interface elements relative to the physical properties of a display of the computer system; and a rendering engine which uses the visual tree passed to the layout engine which added the one or more user interface elements to render the data for display.