Patent ID: 7873915

Claim:
A method of suppressing a user interface element comprising: assigning a unique thread ID to each of a plurality of tabs displayed in a tabbed application; determining the unique thread ID associated with an attempt to display a user interface element when the attempt to display the user interface element is being made, wherein the user interface element is a pop up dialog box; using the unique thread ID to determine whether the user interface element is associated with an active tab that has an associated web page currently displayed, an inactive tab that has an associated web page hidden, or an unknown source by comparing the unique thread ID to data describing known thread IDs for the plurality of tabs; enabling display of the user interface element when the user interface element is associated with the active tab that has the associated webpage currently displayed; automatically without direct user intervention, suppressing display of the user interface element with a modal message loop when the user interface element is associated with the inactive tab that has the associated web page that is hidden, and later displaying the suppressed user interface element in response to a user selecting the inactive tab to cause the inactive tab to become active; and blocking display of the user interface element entirely when the user interface element is associated with the unknown source.