US Patent 7417644 Dynamic pluggable user interface layout

A framework for individually controlling the layout of display elements provides management of the layout automatically via pluggable policies. Control modules are dedicated to controlling the format of respective display elements. The control modules are organized into an ancestral hierarchy tree structure. Each parent control module specifies a policy object that manages the layout of its children, and provides measurement information to ancestor control modules. When an aspect of a control module changes that will affect its layout, it makes a single call which causes the framework to utilize the relevant layout managers to layout any affected control modules.