Patent ID: 7376913

Claim:
A system, comprising: a hand-held portable electronic device having a small form factor, wherein the electronic device includes: a display screen; a control integrated with the electronic device to enable control over navigation and selection within the display screen, wherein a first type of user actuation of the control performs the navigation and wherein a second type of user actuation of the control performs the selection; and software to enable operation of the control in conjunction with a pre-existing application installed in the electronic device, wherein the software includes: a proxying service component to receive codes corresponding to the first and second types of user actuation of the control; a pre-existing handler associated with the pre-existing application, wherein the pre-existing handler can be selected by the proxying service component to receive information associated with the received code; and application-related information and user-configuration information that can be correlated by the pre-existing handler with the received code to determine at least one corresponding command for the pre-existing application; wherein the software enables a user to configure the operation of the control for the pre-existing application; and wherein the software enables extension of the operation of the control to an additional application to be installed in the electronic device without modification of code for the pre-existing and additional applications, the additional application without modification being usable with both the portable electronic device having the small form factor and another electronic device having a larger form factor relative to the portable electronic device; wherein the extension of the operation of the control to the additional application includes installing an additional handler that is different from the pre-existing handler, wherein the additional handler is registered with the proxying service component during installation; and wherein the additional handler enables the proxying service component to interact with the additional application without modification of the code of the additional application.