Patent ID: 7051273

Claim:
A data processing system for displaying and receiving data through user-defined custom forms, each form having a plurality of fields, each field representing a form component and having an associated description indicating characteristics of the field for use in displaying the field and in utilizing the field to obtain and present the data and a standard behavior indicating standard operations associated with the field, the data processing system comprising: means for storing a form data structure having a field object with one or more attributes for each field of the form, the one or more attributes comprising at least one of (i) a group attribute to indicate that the field is in a particular attribute group for enabling or disabling the field based on any other fields within the particular attribute group, or (ii) an idle attribute to indicate that a form control procedure for the form is called periodically; means for storing the form control procedure which is customized to control behavior of the form, wherein the behavior of the form indicates operations associated with the form; a transaction event processor that includes means for selecting one of the plurality of forms; means for retrieving the form data structure and form control procedure for the selected form; means for receiving input from a user of the computer system; means for, in response to receiving the user input, invoking the form control procedure whereby the form control procedure performs a custom behavior for the fields of the form, the custom behavior indicating user-defined operations associated with the fields of the form; and means for performing the standard behavior for the fields of the form when custom behavior is not performed; means for packing the user input into the user-input data structure; and means for presenting user input from the user-input data structure to a designated user in accordance with a form data structure for displaying the user input.