Patent ID: 8612872

Claim:
A method for providing an animated transition effect between a first state of a control element rendered on a graphical user interface of a computer system and a second state of the control element, the method comprising: producing a state graph for the control element, the state graph including: first type nodes, each representing a combination of the first state or the second state and an appearance; second type nodes, each representing a combination of the first state or the second state and an animation, wherein second type nodes having matching animations with different states are grouped; and interconnections between the first type nodes and the second type nodes or between the second type nodes, each of the interconnections corresponding to a state change event; rendering the control element in the first state; receiving, at the graphical user interface, a user input event to invoke the second state of the control element; identifying a node specifying a transition invoked by the user input event from a current displayed first state to a destination state, being the second state, by evaluating one of the state graphs associated with the control element; and rendering an animation corresponding to the transition.