Patent ID: 7278091

Claim:
In a computing environment comprising a user interface, the user interface comprising an element, the element comprising a property, a method for searching for a value to provide to the property, the method comprising: searching for a default property sheet that is designated as important and that includes at least one rule that provides a value to the property; finding a default property sheet that includes a plurality of rules and implementing a rule-order independence to prevent ambiguity as to which rule applies, wherein the rule-order independence is only implemented when more than one rule is present in the default property sheet; searching for an in-line rule that provides a value to the property; when no in-line rule is found that provides a value to the property, searching for a non-default property sheet that includes a rule that provides a value to the property; when no non-default property sheet is found that Includes a rule that provides a value to the property, searching for a default property sheet that is not designated as important and that includes a rule that provides a value to the property; when a rule that provides a value to the property is not found, applying a default value to the property to provide a value to the property, and providing a value to the property upon finding a rule that provides the value to the property therein defining the value provided for a user of the user interface; wherein sources of rules that provide values to the property are prioritized from a highest priority to a lowest priority in that a rule from a rule source with the highest priority is applied to provide the value to the property while rules from lower priority rule sources are ignored.