with reference to the drawings , fig1 is a system diagram showing the environment within which the present invention operates . a web page design environment as generally shown at 30 creates web pages ( such as web page 32 ) for display on browsers 34 of client computers 36 . the web page design environment 30 allows programmers to design web page 32 using controls such as design - time controls 38 . during the design of a web page 40 , a programmer may wish to edit the properties of a design - time control 38 . for example , the programmer may edit the size properties of a control to shrink the control to fit better within the web page document . after web page 40 has been designed and includes control 38 , the web page 40 is stored on web server 42 for access by the users 36 through a global communications network , such as the internet 44 . it should be understood that any type of network may be used , such as a local area network , a wide area network , or a global network . the stored web page 46 contains both the design - time control 38 and the run - time text 48 . once users 36 retrieve the stored web page 46 , the run - time text 48 is active as it is executed upon the client computers 36 . before the web page is returned from the web server , the run - time text may also be executed on the web server . the present invention includes generation of the run - time text 48 when the web page 40 is saved as well as during other situations , such as when the control 38 is inserted into the web document 40 . the design - time control 38 may be any control capable of generating text or computer - executable code . the design - time control 38 may be placed within an html comment to render the design - time information of the control invisible at run - time to the run - time client process or may be removed before the document is sent to the client . fig2 a and 2b are block diagrams depicting the module structure and data flow of the present invention . design - time controls are placed in an html document 60 created via an application such as the dreamweaver web page design application . a custom html tag is created by inserting the corresponding object . in this example , the tag 66 and object 62 are named “ mycontrol ”. the mycontrol object 62 includes an html file ( not shown ) and a graphic image 64 . in addition , there is a mycontrol inspector 68 that is used within the dreamweaver application to manage the mycontrol object 62 and tag 66 . the inspector 68 includes another html file ( not shown ). these files are placed in the dreamweaver configuration directory and an existing dreamweaver file is modified to make the application aware of the new custom tag . once the custom tag 66 has been defined and the files that define the mycontrol object 62 and its inspector 68 are established , an insert action via the dreamweaver user interface inserts a new mycontrol object 62 into document 60 . when the control is inserted , a graphic image 64 is placed in the document 60 , and the dreamweaver application inserts the empty html mycontrol tag 66 for the mycontrol object 62 . next the user clicks with the mouse on the graphic image 64 to access the properties of the mycontrol object 62 . at this point the mycontrol inspector 68 is activated by the dreamweaver application . the mycontrol inspector 68 activates the present invention which in turn creates a mycontrol design - time control 74 . a properties interface window 76 is created for the mycontrol design - time control 74 so that the user may edit the design - time control &# 39 ; s properties 82 . once the property editing session has completed , the present invention provides the edited properties to the mycontrol inspector 68 for updating the properties 67 of the mycontrol tag 66 in the html document 60 . more specifically , the present invention is disposed between the point where the user takes action to access the properties and the point where the content is replaced . the present invention includes a run - time translator module 70 and a design - time control wrapper module 72 . the run - time translator module 70 is a software library that functions within a microsoft windows operating system environment . it complies with the specifications of the c - level extensibility chapter of the extending dreamweaver 3 , published by macromedia located in san francisco , calif . the run - time translator module 70 acts as a “ bridge ” to exchange calls and other data between the inspector 68 and the design - time control wrapper module 72 . the present invention &# 39 ; s design - time control wrapper module 72 encapsulates a design - time control . when a design - time control is created in a document , the inspector 68 provides the run - time translator module 70 with an instruction to reset the design - time control wrapper module 72 . this call is passed on to the design - time control wrapper module 72 . if the design - time control wrapper module 72 is currently storing the state of a design - time control 74 it discards this data . if the mycontrol tag 66 in the document 60 contains no content then the inspector 68 instructs the run - time translator module 70 to set the progid of the design - time control 74 . this typically happens the first time the inspector 68 is invoked for a particular tag in the document . since each tag is inserted empty , the first time the inspector 68 examines the tag 66 there is no content to parse . for this reason the design - time control wrapper module 72 uses a progid to indicate what type of design - time control to create . the inspector 68 instructs the run - time translator module 70 to set the progid , and the progid is passed in . the run - time translator module 70 passes the progid on to the design - time control wrapper module 72 . the design - time control wrapper module 72 creates a hidden window 78 and creates a new design - time control 74 in this window . the type of design - time control 74 that is created is based on the progid passed . if the mycontrol tag 66 in the document 60 contains at least some property data then the set progid instruction is not performed . instead , the inspector 68 copies the content from the mycontrol tag 66 in the document 60 and sends it to the run - time translator module 70 . the inspector 68 instructs the run - time translator module 70 to parse the content that is passed in . in this example , the run - time translator module 70 does not perform manipulation of the content . it passes the content to the design - time control wrapper module 72 and instructs it to parse the content . once the content is parsed into an ordered data structure 80 the design - time control wrapper module 72 examines the data and determines what type of design - time control 74 to create . after this is determined , a hidden window 78 is created and the design - time control 74 is created within that window 78 . the design - time control wrapper module 72 examines the parsed data and extracts the individual design - time control property values . using the component object model ( com ) interface “ ipersistpropertybag ” the design - time control wrapper module 72 sets these property values 82 in the design - time control 74 . now that the design - time control 74 exists and its property values 82 are synchronized with the current tag data 66 in the document , the user 84 is permitted to interact with and modify the design - time control 74 . this modification is done by displaying a properties dialog interface window 76 . the inspector 68 instructs the run - time translator module 70 to show the properties dialog interface window 76 . the run - time translator module 70 passes this instruction on to the design - time control wrapper module 72 . the design - time control wrapper module 72 uses a service of the windows operating system to display an ole property frame . this is a dialog window that allows the user to view and modify the properties 82 of the design - time control 74 . once the user closes this dialog the design - time control properties 82 have been modified . the values of the design - time control properties 82 stored inside the design - time control 74 are now different than the tag values 66 stored in the document 60 . the final step in this process is for the inspector 68 to replace the mycontrol tag content 66 with updated content 82 that reflects these property value changes . the inspector 68 instructs the run - time translator module 70 to get the new content 82 . the run - time translator module 70 instructs the design - time control wrapper module 72 , in turn . the design - time control wrapper module 72 uses the “ ipersist property bag ” and “ iactivedesigner ” interfaces to store the current values of the design - time control properties 82 and to store the output generated by the design - time control 74 . the combined property values and generated output are returned to the inspector 68 as a new block of text - based content . the inspector 68 then replaces the mycontrol tag content 66 in the document 60 with the new content received from the design - time control wrapper module 72 via run - time translator module 70 . when a single mycontrol tag is inserted , users can perform the cycle of accessing the properties and updating the content as many times as they like . once a single copy of the design - time control wrapper module and the run - time translator module are installed with one of the dreamweaver applications , any number of design - time controls can be “ plugged in ” to the application . for each design - time control that is “ plugged in ” the present invention provides in this dreamweaver example that a new tag , new object , and new inspector are added to the dreamweaver collection of files . a general plug - in process is described in the extending dreamweaver 3 document , published by macromedia , inc . in each case , the object and inspectors perform the steps as outlined above . once a single copy of the design - time control wrapper and run - time translator modules are installed with one of the dreamweaver applications , any number of design - time controls can be “ plugged in ” to the application . the design - time control wrapper module 72 of the present invention may be implemented within a single dynamically linked library ( dll ) that has the ability to host a design - time control . the present invention exposes an interface to the user that allows the dll to be accessible from software applications that do not support design - time controls . the dll may include five internal data structures 86 . the first data structure is a hash table called the properties map . the properties map is used to store the names and values of the properties for the design - time control that is currently hosted by the invention . note that each property has a property type which indicates whether the property is a boolean , text , integer , real number , or other type . the second data structure is a string called the metadata tag text . the metadata tag text is the header portion of the text - based representation of the design - time control that is currently hosted by the present invention . the third structure is a string called the control clsid ( class identifier ). the control clsid is the universally unique identifier for the type of design - time control that is currently hosted by the present invention . this identifier is stored in the windows system registry 88 when a design - time control is installed for the first time on a computer . the fourth structure is a string called the progid . the progid is the “ common ” name for the type of design - time control that is currently hosted by the present invention . this name is stored in the windows system registry 88 when a design - time control is installed on a computer . the fifth structure is a string called inner html . the inner html structure is the complete html text - based representation of the design - time control that is currently hosted by the present invention . it should be understood that some web authoring applications can call the design - time control wrapper module directly . in this case the design - time control wrapper module may be the only piece of software required to accomplish the task of adding design - time control support to an application . however for some applications , the present invention provides for a run - time translator module to bridge the gap between the application &# 39 ; s extensibility interface and the design - time control wrapper module . for example , in the case of microsoft word , a word macro is created that calls a non - visual activex control that calls in turn the design - time control wrapper . in this case , the macro and the intermediate activex control are components of the present invention that are specific to the microsoft word application . in such situations , the present invention includes a dialog box that inquires from the user what type of document authoring program the user has . based upon the information supplied by the user , the present invention installs , if needed , the proper “ bridge ” ( i . e ., run - time translator module ) on the user &# 39 ; s computer . fig3 – 6 exemplify several of the advantages of the present invention in providing an efficient way to edit the properties of design - time controls . fig3 is a graphical user interface 100 that depicts an editing window 102 of a web page design application . in this exemplary graphical user interface 100 , a user has inserted a “ thin client graphics ” design - time control . this design - time control retrieves information from a data source ( such as from a database ) and displays during run - time the retrieved information with a dynamic graph , such as with a bar graph or x - y graph . a graphical image icon 104 representative of the design - time control appears in the document . another window 106 provides a button 108 by which the design - time control may be edited . fig4 depicts the same design - time control as fig3 , but with the html source code being displayed generally at 110 . since the design - time control has just been inserted , the design - time control does not contain any values and thus contains only the beginning and ending custom tags “& lt ; sasthingraph & gt ;” and “& lt ;/ sasthingraph & gt ;” in the window 140 . when a user wishes to edit the properties of the “& lt ; sasthingraph & gt ;” design - time control , the user selects the edit button 108 of fig3 . as shown in fig5 , the properties interface 76 then appears . through the properties interface 76 , the user can select different properties of the design - time control to edit . for example , the user can select the dataset tab 120 on the properties interface 76 to specify in region 122 the source of data for the graph . in the “ where clause ” region 124 , the user may also specify filter criteria to retrieve only a certain portion of the data set . other properties may be edited via the appearance tab 125 , such as the size of the graph in the web document . after the user has finished editing the properties , the user selects either the ok button 126 or the apply button 130 to provide notification that the changed properties are the desired values for use in the document . the user may also select the cancel button 128 to leave the properties interface without saving the changed properties . the present invention provides the updated property values to the inspector so that information for the design - time control is updated in the document . fig6 depicts the editing window 140 of a web page development application with the updated property information for the “ thin client graphics ” design - time control ( shown generally at 142 ). as an updating example , the user may have edited the extent of the geographical region within the web page for the graph to be “ 1270 ” in the x direction and “ 1270 ” in the y direction . the value of “ 1270 ” is in the default unit of measurement in visual basic of twips wherein “ 1440 ” twips equals one inch . when a client is viewing the web page at run - time , the graph has a geographical extent as specified by the properties “ — extentx ” and “ — extenty ”. fig7 a and 7b depict exemplary steps for operating the present invention to efficiently edit properties of design - time controls . at step 200 of fig7 a , the web page design application is started . a web page document is opened at step 202 and a custom control is inserted via the insert menu of the development application at step 204 . the development application places empty html tags into the document at step 206 . step 208 allows a graphic image , usually in the form of an icon , to be inserted into the document . the graphic image is representative of the custom tag . the user highlights the graphic image and selects the “ properties ” item from the popup menu at step 210 . at step 212 , the mycontrol inspector window is displayed , and within that window at step 214 the user selects the button which activates the program to edit the control &# 39 ; s properties . with reference to fig7 b , the inspector calls at step 216 the reset library ( which is further described in fig9 ). decision step 218 examines whether the html tag in the document is empty of any property values . if it is , then at step 220 the inspector calls the set progid function which is used by the present invention to know what type of design - time control is to be used ( note : step 220 is further described in fig1 ). if decision step 218 determines that the html tag contains property values , then step 222 is invoked wherein the inspector calls a parse content function in order to pass the content from the mycontrol tag to the present invention ( note : step 222 is further described in fig1 ). processing continues at step 224 after either steps 220 or 222 have completed . at step 224 , the inspector calls the show properties dialog ( note : step 224 is further described in fig1 ). the inspector calls the get content function at step 226 which is further described in fig1 . at step 228 , the inspector replaces the content inside the mycontrol tag with new content retrieved via the call to get content . if the user is done making changes as determined at decision block 230 , then processing terminates at end block 232 . if the user has additional changes , then processing continues at step 210 on fig7 a wherein the user highlights the graphic image and selects the appropriate menu item to edit the properties of the control . fig8 – 14 more specifically describe the functionality of the present invention . fig8 is a flow chart depicting steps that may be used to load the dynamically linked library of the present invention into system memory . this function is invoked once a software application causes the dll to be loaded into system memory . first at step 240 , the operating system routine “ afxenablecontrolcontainer ” is called to declare that the design - time control wrapper library is going to be a container for activex controls . then at step 242 , an mfc cwnd object is created and displayed at step 244 using the sw — hide attribute in order to create a hidden window . this window will be used later to create a control instance . this function then terminates at end block 246 . fig9 is a flow chart showing steps that may be used to reset the dynamically linked library . first at step 250 , all entries are deleted from the property map internal data structure . next at step 252 , all entries are deleted from the metadata tag text , control clsid and control progid internal data structures . at step 254 , the entries of the inner html structure are deleted . decision block 256 examines if a control instance exists . if it does not then processing terminates at end block 258 . if it does contain a control instance , then it is destroyed at step 260 and the function terminates at end block 258 . fig1 is a flow chart showing steps that may be used to set the progid of a design - time control . this function accepts a single text string argument at step 270 and returns success or failure . the text value passed into this function from the software application is stored in the progid internal data structure at step 272 . the function then terminates at end block 274 . fig1 is a flow chart showing steps that may be used to parse the digital content that corresponds to a design - time control . this function accepts at step 280 a single text string argument and returns success or failure . first at step 282 , the input text string passed in is stored in the inner html internal data structure . next at step 284 , the input text string is scanned and broken up into two strings , the header string and the body string . two expected strings delimit the header string . the first expected string begins with an html comment such as : if the first expected string is not found at decision block 286 , then the function returns an error message at step 288 and terminates at end block 290 . if , however , the first expected string is found at decision block 286 , the function continues to scan at step 292 for a second expected string such as : if the second expected string is not found at decision block 294 , then the function returns an error message at step 288 and terminates at end block 290 . if , however , the second expected string is found at decision block 294 , the function stores the header in the metadata tag text internal data structure at step 296 . the body string , which begins just after the close of the initial comment tag , is discarded at step 298 . next , the header string is scanned at step 300 for a string such as : where #### is a string of 36 characters long . if the string is not found at decision block 302 , then the function returns an error message at step 304 and terminates at end block 306 . if the string is found at decision block 302 , the text in the location of #### is stored as the control clsid internal data structure during step 308 . the header string is scanned at step 310 for multiple strings such as : where nnnn and vvvv are strings of arbitrary length . if the strings are not found at decision block 312 , then processing terminates at end block 314 . if the strings are found at decision block 312 , then these names and values are stored as hash elements in the property map internal data structure at step 318 . if a value contains the special string : it is translated into a double quote character at step 316 before being stored at block 318 . if this is the last string as determined by decision block 320 , the function terminates at end block 314 . if it is not the last string , control loops back and the header string is scanned for more name / value pair strings at step 310 . fig1 is a flow chart showing steps that may be used to display the properties dialog box for a design - time control . the function tests at decision block 322 whether the progid internal data structure is blank . if it is blank , processing continues at decision block 324 . if it is not blank , the function calls the windows operating system routine clsidfromprogid at step 326 and stores the result in clsid at step 328 . next , the function tests whether clsid is blank at decision block 324 . if the clsid is blank , the function returns an error at step 330 and terminates at end block 332 . if the clsid is not blank as determined by decision block 324 , then at step 334 a control is created in the cwnd object ( that was created by the initinstance function of fig8 ) by calling createcontrol and passing the clsid value from the internal data structure . this returns a handle to a control instance . at step 336 , the ipersistpropertybag com ( component object model from microsoft corporation ) interface is used to take the values from the property map internal data structure and set them in the control instance . at step 338 , the ispecifypropertypages interface is used to enumerate the tabs that will appear on the property pages for the control instance . at step 340 , the windows api function olecreatepropertyframe is called . a handle to the control instance and the property page enumeration are passed to this function so that the correct property page tabs are created and connected to the control instance . the olecreatepropertyframe allows the interactive user to modify control properties . the function does not return until the interactive user closes the property frame window . when the property frame is closed all entries are removed from the property map internal data structure . the ipersistpropertybag interface is used to retrieve the current property settings stored in the control instance at step 342 . these values are stored in the property map internal data structure . processing then terminates at end block 344 . fig1 is a flow chart showing steps that may be used to obtain the digital document content that corresponds to a design - time control from the dynamically linked library . the function returns a text string . first , a text string is composed at step 350 starting with an html comment such as : next , a text string is added at step 352 such as : the value of the clsid from the internal data structure is written in place of #### in this string . next , the property map internal data structure is examined at decision block 354 . if the properties map is not empty , then each element in the map is obtained at step 356 and written at step 358 as a name / value pair text string of the form : the name from the property map is written in place of nnnn and the value is written in place of vvvv . finally , the text string when there are no more properties as determined by decision block 354 , then at step 360 the iactivedesigner interface is used to query the control for its generated content . specifically , the saveruntimestate method is called and the returned text is appended at step 362 to the text string composed in the preceding steps of fig1 . at step 364 , the html comment : is added to the text string to terminate the text string . the complete text string is returned at step 366 , and the function ends at end block 368 . fig1 is a flow chart showing steps that may be used to release the system resources allocated by the dynamically linked library during its use . the cwnd window object that was created in the initinstance routine is destroyed at step 370 . this function terminates at end block 372 . the preferred embodiments described herein are presented only to demonstrate an example of the invention . additional , and / or alternative , embodiments of the invention would be apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art upon reading this disclosure .