Patent ID: 8434063

Claim:
An appliance development toolkit to enable creation of content to affect operation of a component in an appliance or to affect user interaction with an appliance, the toolkit comprising: an editor stored in a non-transitory storage medium and configured to enable creation of at least one variable holder, to associate the at least one variable holder with a variable, to create at least one value holder related to a valid value of the variable, to associate the at least one variable holder with the at least one value holder, and to create at least one instance of a cycle definition used by the appliance to affect the operation, wherein the cycle definition includes information derived from the at least one variable holder or variable, and the associated at least one value holder or value to form a paired element; wherein a user can use either of the at least one variable holder and the at least one value holder in creating at least one hierarchy of elements for content independent of any relationship that may otherwise exist between the variable and other elements and between the value and other elements so that the variable and the value can be used in different contexts with different relationships while maintaining their relationship with each other via the at least one variable holder and the at least one value holder; and wherein the editor further comprises a validator wherein the editor is further configured to associate the at least one value holder with at least one other variable holder and to create a hierarchical tree structure having alternating levels of variable holders that have value holders that have variable holders, wherein the validator validates a plurality of paired elements by traversing the hierarchical tree structure to observe and verify that each of the variable holders in the plurality is one of a root of the tree and a parent in the tree wherein the parent is a value holder as part of the plurality of paired elements, to observe and verify that each paired element is located at one of the root or a direct descendent of another paired element connected to the root, and to observe and verify that at least one paired element comprises a value holder as a leaf node of the tree.