Patent ID: 8302012

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for providing status of portal content in a portal session, comprising: identifying the portal content, the portal content comprising: one or more applications to which a user is subscribed, and portal settings, the portal settings comprising features that pertain to unsubscribable elements of the portal session that are related to a configuration of the portal session; monitoring one or more states of the one or more applications and the portal settings; providing, to a client device, access to a portal desktop for presenting the portal content comprising the one or more applications and the portal settings; providing a status indicator arrangement in the portal desktop, wherein a first portion of the status indicator arrangement represents states of the one or more applications and a second portion of the status indicator arrangement represents states of the portal settings; notifying the user of a change in a state of one or more of the one or more applications and notifying the user of a change in state of the portal settings using the status indicator arrangement, wherein notifying the user of the change in the state of the one or more of the one or more applications comprises notifying the user even if the one or more of the one or more applications are not being displayed to the user, wherein the status indicator arrangement comprises graphical representations corresponding to the one or more applications and the portal settings, and wherein initial states of the graphical representations are referenced to states of the graphical representations in a previous portal session, wherein notifying comprises changing an appearance of a predetermined graphical representation to indicate an occurrence of an event in the portal content corresponding to the predetermined graphical representation, wherein changing the appearance of the predetermined graphical representation occurs in accordance with user input, the user input specifying the changed appearance of the predetermined graphical representation, the event comprises messages that specify a data object of the portal content and an action associated with the data object, and in response to the user selecting the predetermined graphical representation in the status indicator arrangement, triggering an action related to portal content corresponding to the predetermined graphical representation.