Chained Flex Menus

Abstract

A method of displaying and navigating information using a hierarchical, spring loaded DHTML menu system that adjusts to fit the boundaries of a resizable, container. A set of standard HTML table row elements, having a hierarchical dependency, is consistently displayed as a web-page, under reasonable resizing. This is done using a strut row that produces the largest width requirement when the table structure is resizing to occupy a small width. Only the current row elements and the strut element are required in calculating table resizing to ensure that whichever data elements are displayed when a web-page resizing occurs, the browser auto-layout algorithm calculations will result in a resize attributes that enables all other row elements of that menu to be accommodated by the newly determined table width. As the row elements may themselves be table structures, nested menus of information may be displayed and navigated.

What is claimed: 
     
         1 . A method of displaying information on a screen, comprising:
 providing a first flex menu, and a second flex menu;   logically linking said second flex menu to said first flex menu such that said first flex menu acts as a parent object and said second flex menu acts as a child object;   displaying said first flex menu on a display device; and   simultaneously, displaying said second flex menu as a child submenu of said first parent menu on said display device.   
     
     
         2 . The method of  claim 1  further comprising a flex menu tree comprising plurality of flex menus recursively linked as child objects to a flex menu higher in a hierarchy of said flex menu tree and as parent objects to a flex menu lower in said hierarchy of said flex menu tree. 
     
     
         3 . The method of  claim 2  wherein each flex menu independently determines display parameters relating to itself and wherein said display parameters comprise a font size. 
     
     
         4 . The method of  claim 3  wherein said display parameters further comprise an event management logic and a strut row. 
     
     
         5 . The method of  claim 4  wherein said display parameters further comprise a padding block, a resize handle, and an independent set of CSS display properties.