GRAPHICAL USER INTERFACE FOR SELECTION OF OPTIONS WITHIN MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE SUBSETS

An intuitive and easy-to-use virtual control for a computer graphical user interface (GUI) automatically ensures the self-consistency of user-selected items in a list of selectable items. A GUI control presents a set of selectable options to a user and allows the user to select items from the set of options. The set of selectable items is partitioned into subsets. Items within any one subset may be selected or de-selected independent of each other, while items in different subsets may have interdependent settings. The selection of any item in one subset forces all items in all other subsets to be de-selected, so that the selection of items in distinct subsets are mutually exclusive. More general interdependencies can also be enforced between items in distinct subsets. The GUI control thus ensures the self-consistency of information in cases where conventional radio button and check box GUI controls are inadequate.