Abstract: An architecture that supports the instrumentation of software to generate structured information about its operation. A library of methods and data structure definitions is provided to a developer of a piece of software. The developer includes calls to the methods in order to signal the fact that a given event has occurred. The developer may also cause the program to provide information descriptive of the event by populating data structures defined in the library. The library methods may also contribute to the population of these data structures. In a distributed computing environment in which tasks are performed through a series of calls to remote computers, “per-task” tracing may be performed by sending trace instructions to the remote computers along with the remote calls.

Abstract: A system for providing automatic capabilities in creating a computer form containing control items. Upon selecting a control item to place on a computer form, preferred coordinates to position the control item is automatically determined. Next, the size of the new control item is automatically selected based on properties of the new control item and the size and location of surrounding control items. The new control item, and any intersecting control items, are then automatically adjusted to accommodate the new control item at the preferred coordinates. The adjustments include: (1) setting the width and height of the new control item; (2) identifying the space available to above and to the right of the preferred coordinates; and if the width or height of the new control item exceeds the space available, (3) adjusting the other control items to obtain additional space for the new control item. Alignment properties for the new control item are also automatically determined and assigned.