Abstract: A data funnel interface with adjustable paths guides end-users to information in a relational table. The interface consists of one or more categories of user data derived from the set of user attributes in the database table. Each category of user data consists of human readable data in the table that conveys values relevant to the end-user. Selecting a data item from one category establishes a logical relationship with the next set of data in an unselected category. The end-user has random access to the categories of data and he or she is always free to choose a data item that either builds on an existing pathway or starts a new one. In the interface, alongside each category is a visual cue that indicates the status of an end-user’s data selection. Upon selecting a data item from each category in the interface, the system displays a Continue button to transfer the control to a window object that displays table information.

Abstract: Improvements to the techniques used to generate menu data for a content menu (5) are disclosed. They focus on a new model of data networks, the BAR chain (150); a new developers' interface (130); and new program logic that is easier to maintain. The new interface guides developers in their selection of fields and database attributes according to the BAR chain (150). These improvements include context-sensitive options (such as 175 or 184) and enabling developers to navigate from one table to another intuitively (182). These new features widen the audience for this system by lower the technical demands required to use it. When the developer has finished making selections, the development system (27) stores them in an extended form of meta-query data according to the BAR chain (150). This new format (135) generates both runtime and compiled menu data for a content menu (5).

Abstract: Advances to the techniques used to generate menu data for the content menu (5) are disclosed. All of these advances center on an improved format of meta-query data that is based on Binary Attribute Relations or BAR (120). When the BAR is applied to a BAR query (121) it exposes Binary Attribute Data Relations or BADR (250) that have been hidden from view until now. All three of these new constructs: the BAR (120), BAR query (121) and BADR (250), complement one another and streamline the production of menu data files (24) used by the content menu (5). These advances improve the overall efficiency in generating menu data for the content menu by enabling a single algorithm fetchBADR (200) to fetch binary attribute data relations for one algorithm that compiles menu data (160) and for another that generates this menu data for the content menu at runtime (200). This approach makes all three of these algorithms easier to maintain and to deploy.

Abstract: The present invention advances the prior art of the content menu, an end-user database interface which organizes relational data according to the data and data relations from in the database. It does this by disclosing how to deploy the Binary Attribute Relation or BAR as meta-query data, and by disclosing how Binary Attribute Data Relations or BADR are derived from the BAR query, a primitive retrieval operation. All three new concepts: the BAR, the BADR, and the BAR query, are compact in a mathematical sense, as they represent each of their respective subject material in the most fundamental or primitive way, not matter whether it is a unit of meta-query data, data relations, or the query statement on which they are derived.