Visual characteristics of user interface elements in a unified interest layer

This application is a divisional, under 35 U.S.C. § 121, of U.S. Application Ser. No. 11/370,743, entitled “Unified Interest Layer for User Interface,” filed Mar. 7, 2006, which is a continuation of U.S. application Ser. No. 10/877,968, entitled “Unified Interest Layer for User Interface,” filed Jun. 25, 2004; and the subject matter of the invention is generally related to the following jointly owed and co-pending patent applications, each incorporated herein by reference in its entirety:

• • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 11/144,384, for “Procedurally Expressing Graphic Objects for Web Pages,” filed Jun. 25, 2004 (P3489);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/874,829, for “User Interface for Assisting in the Installation of an Asset,” filed Jun. 22, 2004 (P3453US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/877,358, for “Display-Wide Visual Effects for a Windowing System Using a Programmable Graphics Processing Unit,” filed Jun. 25, 2004 (P3351US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/826,762, for “High-Level Program Interface for Graphics Operations,” filed Apr. 16, 2004 (P3352US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/866,360, for “System and Method for Processing Graphics Operations with Graphics Processing Unit,” filed Jun. 11, 2004 (P3354USX1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/826,596, for “Improved Gaussian Blur,” filed Apr. 16, 2004 (P3355US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/826,744, for “System for Emulating Graphics Operations,” filed Apr. 16, 2004 (P3356US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/876,298, for “User-Interface Design,” filed Jun. 24, 2004 (P3318US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/876,039, for “Gaussian Blur Approximation Suitable for GPU,” filed Jun. 24, 2004 (P3362US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/825,694, for “System for Optimizing Graphics Operations,” filed Apr. 16, 2004 (P3353US1);
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/826,773, for “System for Reducing the Number of Programs Necessary to Render an Image,” filed Apr. 16, 2004 (P3357US1); and
  • U.S. Utility application Ser. No. 10/875,483, for “Fast Approximation Functions for Image Processing Filters,” filed Jun. 24, 2004 (P3429US1).