treeview performance

[Bill]

I just learned of an IBM patent(7412649 ) awarded this month for a
method of populating a treeview that improves performance by loading
only the upper level nodes and loading childnodes only when an
upperlevel node is expanded. Has not this method been around for at
least ten years? I remember reading articles on it back in the VB6
days, but cannot locate them now. Anyway, just curious. The patent was
filed in 2005 and there must be numerous examples of so-called "prior
art" on this before that date. If anyone has a refernce to prior
literatue or actual software, let me know.

Bill

 

[Jeff Gaines]

I just learned of an IBM patent(7412649 ) awarded this month for a
method of populating a treeview that improves performance by loading
only the upper level nodes and loading childnodes only when an
upperlevel node is expanded. Has not this method been around for at

No, use Google and find out what it's really about.

 

[Tom Dacon]

I was doing that with VB 5, in 1996. I came up with the technique
independently, IIRC, although I have no doubt that others were doing the
same thing. I still have the code in a zip file, which probably retains its
file times, so I could prove that it's been in use at least twelve years.

Tom Dacon
Dacon Software Consulting

 

[Bill]

I read the entire patent application and downloaded much of it. see
for yourself at www.uspto.gov. Just choose search and follow the links
to where you search by patent number and enter the number I gave here.
IBM does couch things differently than what most programers use. for
example, the child nodes of the root are referred to as upper level
nodes.

 

[Frans Bouma [C# MVP]]

I just learned of an IBM patent(7412649 ) awarded this month for a
method of populating a treeview that improves performance by loading
only the upper level nodes and loading childnodes only when an
upperlevel node is expanded. Has not this method been around for at
least ten years? I remember reading articles on it back in the VB6
days, but cannot locate them now. Anyway, just curious. The patent was
filed in 2005 and there must be numerous examples of so-called "prior
art" on this before that date. If anyone has a refernce to prior
literatue or actual software, let me know.

Yes, we use that method at least since 2002, and it's the logical step
after you've ran into a problem where adding all nodes is simply too
slow. Windows explorer uses the same approach btw. There's a regkey
which allows you to read all nodes up front (forgot which one) which
makes it crawl.

Software patents are evil, let's just hope the software impaired
nuttcases making the laws will get it one day.

FB

--
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Lead developer of LLBLGen Pro, the productive O/R mapper for .NET
LLBLGen Pro website: http://www.llblgen.com
My .NET blog: http://weblogs.asp.net/fbouma
Microsoft MVP (C#)
------------------------------------------------------------------------

 

[Peter Morris]

Do you have a full URL to the info? I can't find it! According to this
page

http://www.latestpatents.com/2008/08/12/ibm-patents-granted-on-12-august-2008/

The number you specified is
"Viewing and editing markup language files with complex semantics"


Pete

 

[Tom Dacon]

I agree with your points. I'd like to see the patent. Has anyone posted a
link?

Tom