Patent ID: 8130237

Claim:
A method to represent a material map for a graphical user interface element for presentation by a programmable control device, the method comprising: receiving, by a programmable control device, information to define a plurality of attribute-value pairs for a material map, each attribute-value pair comprising a display attribute and one or more data items, the material map for use with presenting a graphical user interface element on a display device; associating each received data item with a corresponding display attribute, wherein at least one data item comprises two or more display time values for the associated display attribute, the two or more display time values corresponding to two or more run-time resolution settings of the display device, wherein the plurality of attribute-value pairs are sufficiently complete to permit the material map to be rendered on the display device using display time values corresponding to an operational resolution setting of the display device; and storing the plurality of attribute-value pairs of display attributes and their associated data items in a file accessible by the programmable control device.