Building software statements such as search queries to a tabular database through a user-interactive computer display interface

摘要

A user-interactive display interface implementation for building structured software program statements and, particularly, such structured statements which may serve as search queries to databases including a plurality of display rows together with means enabling the entry of program terms into each of said rows. A template is vertically movable to each of said rows and includes a template row of indicators, each defining a type of program term enabled to be positioned in said row coincident with said indicator. There are a plurality of user-activatable menus of selectable terms, each menu respectively associated with one of said indicators. The selectable terms in each of the menus are respectively of the term type enabled to be positioned coincident with the associated indicator. Then, for editing purposes, there is selection of one of said indicators to thereby display the menu associated with the selected indicator. Preferably, the selected menu is a scrolled menu from the selected indicator. The program or search query statements being built are sequential and preferably wrap from at least one of said rows to the next row.