Patent ID: 7467236

Claim:
Peripheral control method for setting and controlling working conditions for peripherals, comprising: storing in advance in a predetermined storage medium working environment data that identifies a working environment of a peripheral, the working environment data indicating conditions in which the peripheral is placed, dependency relationship data that indicates dependency relationships among said working conditions in that working environment to identify other working conditions which are associated with the working conditions, and settable range data that indicates settable ranges for said working conditions, and are usable when displaying a user interface for setting the working conditions for a peripheral in a given working environment; a working condition input-output step wherein settings for each working condition are input, and settable ranges of said working conditions for a multiplicity of peripherals are acquired by referring to said settable range data, settable ranges within which said multiplicity of peripherals are settable in the current working environment are all made decision branches without duplication, and displayed on a predetermined output device; a working condition update step wherein settable ranges of said multiplicity of peripherals are acquired for working conditions dependent on working conditions that have been modified by means of input of said settings with reference to said settable range data and dependency relationship data, wherein by ascertaining dependency relationships among working conditions by the dependency relationship data, where such dependency relationship exists between the working conditions, preventing execution of a process to acquire settable ranges for working conditions having no dependency relationship, thus acquires the settable range data, and after said modify, settable ranges within which said multiplicity of peripherals are settable in the current working environment are all displayed as decision branches without duplication; and a peripheral control step wherein peripherals workable under working conditions at said handled input of settings are driven according to said working conditions.