Improvements to User Interfaces

In this release, we’ve made several changes to the ClaimMaster user interfaces to deal with changes in Microsoft Office and also make using ClaimMaster easier.

Updated image preview panes

Microsoft recently discovered a vulnerability in some of its ActiveX controls, which prompted a recommendation to disable ActiveX controls in Office applications. When these controls are blocked by a security policy, you may see compile errors when trying to use certain ClaimMaster features that relied on the Microsoft web browser control for viewing PDF images, such as figure proofreading, IDS generation, OA analysis, and shell/form generation. To deal with this, we have completely redesigned the preview panes in ClaimMaster and no longer use any problematic Microsoft controls in our software. Truth be told, Microsoft’s web browser control has been a pain to deal with recently due to incompatibility with 3rd party PDF add-ins and other issues, so we are glad to see it go. Plus, the redesigned pre-view panes load much faster, will ensure Windows 11 compatibility, do not depend on any other 3rd party applications, such as Adobe or Foxit, and have a cool click-to-magnify feature (see user interface screenshot below).

updated image preview

Reorganized ClaimMaster ribbon

It’s been a while since we’ve made any changes to the ClaimMaster ribbon user interface, although we’ve been continuously adding new features. As a result, it was time for a small cleanup to make finding various ClaimMaster tools more intuitive and also free up space for the upcoming features. Here are the details of the changes in the updated ribbon:

new ClaimMaster ribbon
  • Added Navigation Tools section that includes Document Map and various Claim Tree tools
  • Reorganized the Individual Proofing Tools menu to include OA Header Check and Post-Grant Check tools
  • Added Patent Drafting Tools subsection to the Time-Saving Tools menu. This subsection now includes tools for generation flowcharts, Summary, and Brief Description of Figures section. We’ll be adding more tools soon.
  • Moved Patent Reader to the Downloading Tools menu.
  • Combined preferences, other miscellaneous tools, and help sections into a single Preferences, Extra Tools, and Help menu.

Resizing of reporting windows

Based on the popular request, we’ve added the resizing capability to the reporting windows when they are undocked to the side of the Word document (i.e., in floating mode). To resize, simply click and drag the hashed pattern in the right lower corner of the reporting window, as shown below. This will allow you to make the reporting window longer and/or wider to make reading of the reports easier.

adjustable reporting windows

By the way, to undock reporting windows, you can uncheck the Dock Reporting Windows option in the ClaimMaster’s preferences.


Adjustable text size for reporting windows

Depending on your screen resolution (and your eyesight), the text in ClaimMaster reporting windows may sometimes look a little small. We’ve now added the ability to increase the text size for reporting windows to make reading a little easier. To set the preferred text size for the reporting windows, go to ClaimMaster->Preferences and then set the text size, as shown below.

adjustable font sizes

The resulting GUI reports will display the reports using the specified (typically larger) font size.

larger reporting window

Take a look at other numerous improvements in this release: