1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is directed to a method and system for coordinating multiple software components to communicate and share a portion of a computer monitor or display.
2. Discussion of the Background
Numerous program display control systems have been used to coordinate the display of some number of programs on a single (virtual or real) display/monitor. In the X Windows environment, such a control system is called a windows manager. Examples of known windows managers include: FVWM, FVWM95, TWM/VTWM, MWM, CTWM, OLWM/OLVWM, wm2/wmx, AfterStep, AmiWM, Enlightenment, WindowMaker, SCWM, IceWM, Sawfish, and Blackbox. Using configuration files for the applications run under the X Windows window managers, certain windowing parameters (e.g., windows locations and colors) can be set at application start-up time.
In X Windows, libraries of various re-usable components have been built to standardize the look and feel of various components within a graphical user interface. Such libraries include OpenLook and Motif and implement “widgets” having a variety of functions (e.g., buttons and menus).
A consortium of participants in the health care industry have combined to form the Clinical Context Object Workgroup (CCOW), which, according to its 1998 White Paper, “publishes standards for the visual integration of cooperative interaction among independently authored healthcare applications at the point of use.” As further stated therein “Version 1 of the standard [ratified in April 1999], the Patient Link, supports synchronizing the applications for a selected patient. When the user of an application changes the selected patient, the other applications on the workstation follow the change. The cooperation frees the user from the tedium of repeating the action in more than one application.” Subsequently versions 1.1 and 1.2 were ratified in January and May, 2000, respectively.