Patent ID: 7340721

Claim:
A method for developing an application program, the method comprising: displaying on a computer screen a toolbox having a plurality of icons, each icon corresponding to a program object that can be selected by a user, the program objects being configured to issue one or more respective events; displaying on the computer screen a form window configured to hold symbolic representations of instantiations of program objects whose icons are selected from the toolbox, the selected program objects having a graphical user interface element; displaying on the computer screen a designer window configured to hold symbolic representations of instantiations of all program objects whose icons are selected from the toolbox; choosing, by the user, to graphically or textually define an event handler procedure corresponding to an instantiation of a selected program object whose symbolic representation is displayed in the designer window; if the user chooses to graphically define the event handler procedure, performing the steps: graphically defining the event handler procedure for the instantiation of the selected program object displayed in the designer window; incorporating the graphically defined event handler procedure into the application program; and if the user chooses to textually define the event handler procedure, performing the steps: textually defining, within a code window displayed on the computer screen, the event handler procedure for the instantiation of the selected program object displayed in the designer window, the code window being configured to accept textual inputs from the user; and incorporating the textually defined event handler procedure into the application program.