Patent ID: 8117552

Claim:
A method comprising: displaying an electronic form in a form-design area, the electronic form including an existing component, the existing component having a data-entry field; displaying, in a hierarchical schema display area, a first representation of a hierarchical schema, the hierarchical schema corresponding to the electronic form and having XML code; receiving an input through a graphical user interface to add a new component at a location in the form-design area; responsive to receiving the input: inferring as follows: if the location is within a subordination area of the existing component, that the new component is subordinate to the existing component; if the location is below the existing component, that the new component is subordinate to the existing component; or if the location is above the existing component, that the new component governs the existing component; incrementally changing both XSLT code used to display the electronic form and the hierarchical schema to reflect the received new component, the incrementally changing as follows: if the location is below the existing component, as being subordinate to the existing component and altering an existing XML schema part associated with the existing component to include, as subordinate, a new schema part associated with the new component-to be subordinate to the existing XML schema part; if the location is within the subordination area, as being subordinate to the existing component and altering the existing XML schema part associated with the existing component to include, as subordinate, the new schema part associated with the new component to be subordinate to the existing XML schema part; or if the location is above the existing component, as governing the existing component and altering the existing XML schema part associated with the existing component to to be subordinate to the new schema part; and displaying, in the hierarchical schema display area, a second representation of the hierarchical schema, the second representation showing as follows: if the location is below the existing component, the new schema part associated with the new component to be subordinate to the existing XML schema part; if the location is within the subordination area of the existing component, the new schema part associated with the new component to be subordinate to the existing XML schema part; or if the location is above the existing component, altering the existing XML schema part to be subordinate to the new schema part.