Abstract: An automated administration system for providing state-based control of soft-labeled keys (SLKs) in a wireless terminal or other type of communication system terminal. In an illustrative embodiment, the automated administration system uses a set of operations to generate information representative of a state machine for controlling labels for the SLKs. The operations process input received from a given user, e.g., a form specifying desired features, layout and language, and generate a state transition table or other suitable representation of a corresponding state machine. Other information generated by the automated administration system may include a control table and a label table. The control table associates a different set of SLK label identifiers with each state in a set of states of the terminal. Each of the label identifiers specifies a label to be associated with a given one of the SLKs in at least one of the states.

Abstract: Feature access control is provided for soft-labeled keys (SLKs) of a wireless terminal or other type of terminal in a communication system. In an illustrative embodiment, a different set of SLK label identifiers are associated in a control table with each state in a set of states of the terminal. Each of the label identifiers specifies a label to be associated with a given one of the SLKs in a given one of the states. The label identifiers are used as pointers into a label table which specifies, for each of the label identifiers, a corresponding label for one of the SLKs. The control table and label table together implement a bidirectional mapping between single switch-based features and corresponding multiple state-based appearances of those features on the terminal. The control table and label table may be downloaded into the terminal from a switch of the system. The SLK labels of the terminal may be updated by, e.g.