JPH03214220A - Display system for animation icon - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To enable a user to understand the contents of operation by displaying an operation mode, a selection mode, and the icon whose contents are asked by the user as necessary in animations. CONSTITUTION:A user operates a mouse 4 and a cursor 3, for example, enters the display area of either one of icons 2a, 2b.... Thus a cursor position detecting means 6 detects the area of the cursor 3, and the animation screens which are stored in an icon screen storage means 5 in response to each ion are successively displayed in the corresponding display areas via an icon display means 7. Each animation screen is displayed for only the time that is previously defined for each screen, for example, and the next animation screen is displayed whe the first defined time passed. If the cursor 3 gets out of the relevant icon display area when the user moves the mouse 4 further, a key screen is displayed again of the icon display area. Thus the user can easily understand the contents of the corresponding icon and especially the contents of the relevant operation.

Description

[Detailed Description of the Invention] C Overview] This invention relates to a video icon display method that displays icons displayed on a display screen in a video format in order to make it easier for users to understand the operation of a computer system. In a computer system that has a display area for a plurality of icons on a display screen and is equipped with a mouse for moving a cursor to point to one of the plurality of icons, the purpose is to promote user understanding. , for each of the plurality of icons,
icon screen storage means for storing a representative screen and a plurality of video screens; cursor position detection means for detecting the position of the cursor on the display screen based on information from the mouse; and a cursor detected by the cursor position detection means. when the position is not on any of the display areas of the plurality of icons, the representative screen stored in the icon screen storage means is displayed in each icon display area on the display screen, and the cursor position detection means When the detected cursor position indicates one of the plurality of icons, the icon display area is sequentially switched between the plurality of video screen screens for the designated icon at specified time intervals for each video screen. icon display means for displaying the representative screen for icons other than the above icon.

(Industrial Application Field) The present invention relates to a man-machine interface between a computer system and a user, and more specifically, the present invention relates to a man-machine interface between a computer system and a user. This article relates to a video icon display method.

[Prior Art and Problems to be Solved by the Invention] Generally, the coordinate position of an icon, which is a pictogram displayed on a display screen in a computer system, is selected by a mouse cursor, and the coordinate position is designated by a button operation on the mouse. .

As icons, for example, document processing is represented by a picture of a document, and graph processing is represented by a picture of a graph.

Icon display has the advantage of being easy for the user to understand, but conversely, as the number of icons increases, the user must memorize the meanings of all symbolically represented icons.

In particular, the problem with icons that activate operations is that they are difficult for users to understand because the operations are expressed using abstract symbols. For this reason, conventional methods have been used such as increasing the resolution of the icon or adding three-dimensional description to increase the amount of information received from the icon itself, giving a unified meaning to the shape of the icon, and providing information about the icon. The method used was to provide help via a help screen.

However, in the first two methods among these three methods, no matter how large the amount of information is, it is difficult for the user to intuitively understand it. Furthermore, if the third method is also difficult to understand, the advantage of the icon will be meaningless. As described above, the conventional methods are not always sufficiently useful for user understanding.

An object of the present invention is to promote user understanding by displaying icons in animation.

[Means to solve the problem]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the principle of the present invention. In the figure, a plurality of icons 2a are displayed on a display screen 1.

2b, . . . , and a mouse 4 for moving a cursor 3 to point to any one of the plurality of icons. FIG.

In FIG. 1, the icon screen storage means 5 stores a representative screen of the icon and a plurality of moving image screens for each of the plurality of icons 2a, 2b, . . . . The cursor position detection means 6 detects the position of the cursor 3 on the display screen 1 based on information from the mouse 4.

In the icon display means 7, the position of the cursor 3 detected by the cursor position detection means 6 is the icon 2a.

2b..., the representative screen stored in the icon screen storage means 5 for each icon is displayed in the display area of each icon on the display screen 1, and the cursor position detection means If the position of the cursor 3 detected by 6 is multiple icons 2a, 2b, ・
..., multiple video screens for the specified icon are switched at specified time intervals for each video screen and sequentially displayed on the icon display area, and the specified icon is The representative screen is displayed for icons other than those listed above.

(Function) In order to express an operation using a stationary figure, it is necessary to show a scene of the operation or use abstract symbols, but compared to such stationary figures, moving figures are This is extremely effective for explaining what an operation is.For this reason, the present invention displays icons as animations, but it is not necessary because constantly moving figures on the display screen actually get in the way of the user. In such cases, it is desirable to display a video.

Therefore, in the present invention, when the user operates the mouse 4 in FIG. 1, the cursor 3 moves to the icons 2a, 2b,
When the cursor enters any of the display areas, the cursor position detection means 6 detects it, and the icon display means 7 sequentially displays the video screen corresponding to the icon stored in the icon screen storage means 5. displayed in the display area. Display of each video screen is performed for a predefined time for each screen, for example, and when the defined time has elapsed, the next video screen is displayed.

Then, by the user moving the mouse 4 further,
When cursor 3 leaves the icon display area,
The representative screen will be displayed again in the icon display area.

Furthermore, if the user is well aware of the meaning of an icon, the user can specify whether or not to display a moving image for the icon, for example, by using a flag.

As described above, according to the present invention, an icon that is being operated, selected, or whose contents the user has asked about is displayed as a video as necessary, so that the user can understand the meaning of the icon, in particular, what kind of operation it is. It will be easy to understand whether this is the case.

〔Example〕

FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall concept of an embodiment of the moving image icon display method of the present invention. In the figure, a plurality of icons 2a are displayed on the display screen 1.

There are display areas 2b, . . . , 2n, and a cursor 3 is displayed. The cursor 3 can be moved by the user using the mouse 4. Each icon 2a
, 2b, . . . , a screen base 8a corresponding to 2n,
8b, . . . , 8n stores a representative screen for each icon and a plurality of moving image screens. For example, the screen base 8I stores CI,o as a representative screen and a plurality of moving image screens C1,1 to C21.

Also, corresponding to each icon 2a, 2b, . . . 2n, icon position information 9a indicating the position of the icon
, 9b, ..., 9n. The mouse processing unit 10 generates icon position information 9a to 9a based on information from the mouse 4.
9n, it is detected whether the cursor 3 has entered any of the icons 2a to 2n. Icon display mechanism 11
When the mouse processing unit 10 detects that the cursor 3 enters any of the icon display areas, it displays the corresponding video screen of the screen bases 8a to 8n in the icon display area. do.

FIG. 3 is a block diagram illustrating an embodiment of moving image display start and end operations. Figure (a) shows the operation at the start of video display, and when the mouse processing unit IO detects that the cursor 3 has entered the display area of one of the plurality of icons, for example 2j, the mouse processing unit IO starts the mouse processing. The unit IO requests the icon display mechanism 11 to display a moving image, and the icon display mechanism 11 uses the image data in the screen base 8j corresponding to the icon 2j to display the image in the display area of the icon 2J from the representative side into a moving image. display multiple screens one after another.

In FIG. 3(b), when the mouse processing unit O detects that the cursor 3 has come out of the display area of the icon 2j, it requests the icon display mechanism 11 to end the video display, and the icon display mechanism 11 The video display for the icon 2j is ended, the representative screen in the screen base 8j is displayed in the display area of the icon 2j, and the process is ended.

FIG. 4 shows an example of a moving image display operation. FIG. 3(a) shows the state before the start of video display, in which 1 is displayed in the display area of the icon 2j of the display screen 11, and the icon display device JR11 is displayed.
The representative screen C1 within the screen base 8j. is displayed. Figure (b) shows the start of the video, and icon 2
In the display area Cj, the first moving image screen Cj, I is displayed by the icon display mechanism 11.

The moving image screens C11, to CJ, m are switched at time intervals defined for each screen. CJ, l (1””
If the display time of I ``ra'' is 1., the screen display state after time t1 has elapsed after the start of video display is as shown in Figure 4 (C
). That is, the display time of the video screen C5,1 is t.
l, and when that time elapses, the second moving image screen CJ, 2
is displayed in the display area of the icon 2j by the icon display mechanism 11.

FIG. 4(d) shows a state where the last moving image screen CJ,n is displayed. At this time, the moving picture screen from 03 to Cj, -1 has been displayed for a defined time. After the last moving image screen CJ, M has been displayed for a defined time, the first moving image screen Cj, I is displayed again.

FIG. 5 is an example of an icon and its corresponding screen base. FIG. 3(a) shows icons of a compass and scissors, and FIG. 3(b) shows a representative screen and a video screen for the compass and scissors. The first figure in (1)) is a representative screen of the compass and scissors, and the second and subsequent screens are the corresponding moving image screens. The video screen for the compass icon shows mouths being drawn in sequence, and the video screen for the scissors icon shows paper being cut by scissors.

FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the concept of a second embodiment of the moving image icon display method. In this embodiment, the plurality of icons 2a to 2n are each treated as a type of window, similar to the X window, and the event handler 12 detects whether the cursor 3 has entered any of the windows.

The icons are displayed by icon display mechanisms 13a to 13n corresponding to the plurality of icons 2a to 2n, respectively. Divided icon display mechanisms 13a to 13
In addition to the screen bases 8a to 8n, icon position information 9a to 9n is stored inside the screen. event handler 1
2 is information from the mouse 4 and each icon display mechanism 13
The icon on which the cursor 3 is placed is detected by referring to the icon position information 9a to 9n in a-13n, and the corresponding one of the icon display mechanisms 13a to 13n is activated, and the video screen in the screen base is displayed. Displayed in sequential order.

However, in order to prevent unnecessary operations, as described later, a flag is set to indicate whether or not the icon is in the animation state when the cursor enters the icon, and for example, after setting the flag to the animation state, shall start displaying the video. Furthermore, it is assumed that the switching of video screens is performed at fixed intervals using, for example, an interval timer.

FIG. 7 shows an example of display operation when icon display areas overlap. In the same figure, the display area of the icon 21 partially overlaps with the display area of the other icons 2a and 2n, and when displaying the icon 21 in such a case, the event handler 12 uses the icon display mechanism 13i.
By referring to the icon position information 9I in the icon 21, the screen for the icon 21 is brought to the forefront of other overlapping icons, thereby reducing the processing of hidden surfaces.

When the cursor 3 leaves the display area of the icon 21, the representative screen stored in the screen base 81 in the icon display mechanism 13i is displayed again in the display area.

FIG. 8 shows the detailed structure of data within each component in the embodiment. FIG. 3(a) shows the data in the screen base 81, of which C1. .

is a representative screen of the corresponding icon. Representative screen C1,
The data o consists of an image portion representing a picture on the screen and N indicating how many video screens are stored in the screen base. The screens after the next screen C, 1 are video screens, each consisting of an image part displayed in the display area and N data as a coefficient indicating how long the screen will be displayed. ing.

FIG. 8(b) shows data in the icon display mechanism 11, including an icon number register indicating which icon is displayed, a frame number register indicating which screen within the screen base is displayed, and a moving image screen. It consists of a timer counter used as a counter to monitor display time, an image pointer used temporarily when displaying an image in the screen base, and an icon pointer for indicating any of the screen bases 8a to 8n. ing.

FIG. 8 (phrase icon position information is data corresponding to 9a to 9n in FIG. 2, and indicates data regarding the status of each icon 2a to 2n. XY indicates the start of icon display on display screen 1) Indicates the coordinates of the position, set by the user, for example. H and W indicate the width and height of the icon display area on the display screen 1, which are also set by the user, for example. ON indicates whether the cursor 3 is within the display area of the icon, that is, whether it is in the video state or not.
VALID is a flag that indicates whether or not to display a video even if the cursor 3 enters the icon display area.
or a flag represented by O, which is also set by the user, for example.

FIG. 8(d) shows the data in the mouse processing section 10, which is X.

Y is the coordinate representing the position of the cursor 3 on the display screen 1, and I is the number of the icon within the display area of the cursor 3. Further, image indicates a picture, ie, an image, of the cursor 3 on the display screen 1.

FIG. 9 shows the entire process IJ-Chart 1 of the mouse processing unit 10. In the same figure, initialization processing of the mouse processing unit is first performed at 314, and cursor display processing is performed at S15.
Icon check processing is performed in S16. 3150
The force-sol display process and the icon check process of 316 are as follows:
As will be described later, this process is repeated while the icon display mechanism 11 displays a moving image screen.

FIG. 10 is a flowchart of an embodiment of initialization processing S14 of the mouse processing section. In the figure, first, in S17, the 8th
All values of data I, X, and Y in FIG. 3(d) are initialized to O. That is, the number I of the icon whose cursor is in the display area is set to 0, and the position coordinates of the cursor are both set to 0.

Then, in 318, the image of cursor 3 is set, and the process ends.

FIG. 11 is a flowchart of an embodiment of cursor display processing. First, in S19, the data from the mouse 4 is the data X in the register regarding the cursor position in FIG. 8(d),
In step S20, the image of the cursor set in step 318 in FIG. 10 is copied to the coordinates X and Y on the display screen 1, and the process ends.

FIG. 12 is a detailed flow chart of 316 in FIG. 9, that is, the icon check process.

When the process starts in the same figure, first, in S21, it is determined whether the value of I held in the mouse processing unit 10, that is, the number of the icon pointed to by the cursor, exceeds the maximum number of icons, If it exceeds I at 322
The value of is set to 0 and the process ends.

If I does not exceed the maximum number of icons in S21,
Icon position information 9 for the first icon in S23
1 is accessed. Here, 91 is the first data of the icon position information 9a, 9b, . . . . Thereafter, in step 324, it is determined whether the value of 91° VALID, that is, the value of the flag indicating whether or not to display a moving image of the icon when the cursor enters the icon position information, is O. If the flag is 0, the icon is not intended for the video cover, so the value of T is incremented at 325, and the processing from 321 is repeated.

Here 91. ☆ refers to ☆ data in the icon position information 91, and the same description will be used below.

When the value of VALID is 1 in S24, the icon is to be displayed as a moving image. Therefore, in 326, the starting point coordinates X and Y of the icon display area of the icon position information in FIG. Using the width and height W and H, it is determined whether the starting positions X and Y of the cursor stored in the mouse processing unit 10 are within the icon display area. If the cursor is not within the icon display area in S26, it is determined in 327 whether the value of 9i, ON, that is, the value of the flag indicating whether the icon is in the moving image state, is 1. , l, it means that the icon is not displayed as a moving image, so the value of r is incremented by 325, and the process from S21 is repeated. If the value of ON in 327 is 1, it means that the cursor 3 has moved out of the icon that was in the video state, so in 32B, 9i is set to ON, that is, the value of ON in the icon position information is O. Thereafter, in S29, an icon display mechanism termination process, which will be described later, is performed and the process ends.

If it is determined in S26 that the cursor is within the icon display area, it is determined in S30 whether the value of 9i, ON described above is 0, and if it is 0, it is determined in S31.
In step S32, the value is set to 1, and in step S32, an I start process of the icon display mechanism, which will be described later, is performed and the process ends.

Also, if the ON value is 1 in S30, it means that the video display of that icon has already started, so S
At step 33, the next display process of the icon display mechanism is performed and the process ends. Here, the I start process of the icon display mechanism means the start of video processing of the first icon, and the next display process of the icon display mechanism means the display process of the next screen during video processing.

FIG. 13 is a detailed flowchart of the I start process and the next display process of the icon display mechanism. Here, 1 is a formal argument indicating the number of the icon, and the mouse processing unit 1O uses this value to specify the icon being processed. In the I start process, when the process is started, the number r of the icon currently being processed is set in the icon number register in the icon display mechanism shown in FIG. 8, 0 is set in the frame number register, and 0 is set in the timer counter at 334. , in S35, the start address of the screen base 81 corresponding to the icon currently being processed is set in the icon pointer. Here, i is the value of the icon number register, and similarly, it is assumed that the value of the frame number register is j.

Next, at 336, the value of j is incremented, now equal to one. Then, in S37, the value of j is determined as the representative screen Ci within the screen base 81.
,. It is determined whether the value of N in , that is, exceeds the total number of video screens in the screen base 81. If the value is exceeded, the value of j is set to 1 in 338 to return to the beginning of the video screen, and if it is not exceeded, the value of j is set to 1 at 339.
Shift to processing. Note that here, C, . . . , N represent the value of N in the data of the j-th frame of the screen base 81.

In S39, frame CI,j in the screen base 81 is displayed on the image pointer in the icon display mechanism of FIG.

image, that is, the starting address of the image of that frame, initially the starting address of the image of C71, is set,
In S40, the value of N for that frame, that is, the coefficient for how long the screen will be displayed, is set in the timer counter, and in S41, the icon indicated by the icon position information in FIG. 8 starts to be displayed on the display screen 1. Using the positions X and Y, the image pointed to by the image pointer is copied to that position.

Thereafter, it is determined in S42 whether the value of the timer counter is 0 or not, and if it is not 0, delay processing is performed in S43 to adjust the waiting time (undefined here) by an appropriate empty process. Thereafter, the value of the timer counter is decremented by 1 in S44, and the process from S42 onwards is repeated again, and when the value of the timer counter reaches O in 342, the process ends. As a result, the first moving picture screen C1,1 is displayed for the specified time.

When the display of the first moving image screen C71 is finished, the 1 start process 332 in FIG. 12 is finished, and the icon check process 316 in FIG. 9 is finished.
After that, the process from S15 is repeated. In S15, the cursor display process explained in FIG. 11 is performed again, and S
16, the next moving image screen, that is, C2 in FIG. 8(a)
．． Icon check process S16 for displaying item 2
is started again. In this case, the icon check process, that is, step S21 in FIG. S23. S24
, and through the processing of S26, the value of ON indicating whether or not the icon position information is in the moving image state is determined in S30, but here, since the moving image processing has already started, the value is 1, In S33, the next display process of the icon display mechanism is performed and the process ends.

The next icon display process starts at 345 in FIG. In S45, it is determined whether or not the value i of the icon number register is O. If it is 0, it means that the icon number being processed is O, and in this case, the process is terminated as an error.

If it is not 0, the value of j is incremented in S36, and here the value becomes 2 in order to display the next moving image screen C1, C2. After that, as described above, S for the second moving image screen C1, C2 is
After the processes from 37 to 344 are performed and the screen is displayed for the time specified by the value of N for C1 and 2, the value of the timer counter is determined to be 0 in S42, and the process ends.

Thereafter, the video screens are displayed one after another in exactly the same way, and after the last video screen in the screen base 8j is displayed, the first video screen is displayed.
3 because the value of j exceeds the total number of video screens at 337 in Figure 3.
At step 38, the value of j is stopped at 1, and the first moving image screen is displayed again.

When the user moves the cursor 3 out of the display area of a certain icon in order to end the video display of that icon, the icon of FIG. 12 is displayed in the next icon check process 316 of the cursor display process S15 of FIG. The check process is performed again. Here, after going through the processing from S21 to 324, it is detected in 326 that the cursor has gone out of the display area, and in S27, the value of the ON flag indicating whether the icon is in a moving image state is 1? At this time, the ON value is still 1, and after this value is set to 0 in step 328, the icon display mechanism termination process is performed in step S29, and the check process ends.

FIG. 14 is a detailed flowchart of the termination process of the icon display mechanism. When the process is started in the figure, first, in S46, the value pointed to by the icon pointer is set as the value of the image pointer. As mentioned above, the value of the icon pointer points to the starting position of the screen base 81, and this is the representative screen C1 within the screen base. In order to match the start position of the image of the representative screen, the image pointer is set to the start position of the image of the representative screen. After that, in S47, the image pointed by the image pointer is copied to the icon display start coordinates X and Y on the display screen l, and in 34B, the icon number register, frame number register, timer counter, image pointer, and icon pointer are copied to prevent malfunctions. The process ends with O being set for all of the values. Note that the termination process explained here is the first one.
It is assumed that this is not performed before the I start process in FIG.

FIG. 15 shows an embodiment of the overall system using hardware for executing the moving image icon display method of the present invention described in detail above. In the figure, the system consists of a display screen 1, a mouse 4, an icon display and mouse processing section 49, and a memory 50. On the display screen 1, a plurality of icons 2a, 2b, . . . Screen base 8a, 8b, ・
. . . and icon position information 9a, 9b, . . . are stored.

The icon display and the components of the mouse processing section 49 will be briefly explained. The memory interface 51 is an interface for accessing the screen base 8a, . . . and the icon position information 9a, .

. . . and the icon position information 9a, . . . This is a switch for setting the starting address of . The screen interface 53 is an interface for displaying icons and cursors on the display screen 1, and the image RO
M54 is a read-only memory in which a cursor image is stored.

The image screen of the icon stored in the image ROM 54 and memory 5o is displayed on the memory interface 51.
The signal is sent from the DMA 55 to the display screen 1. Further, the mouse interface 56 is an interface for controlling the mouse 4.

The register bank 57 holds a copy of the internal data and icon position information of the icon display mechanism shown in FIG. 8, and the timer 58 is an interval timer for measuring the value of the timer counter in the register bank 57. Yes, the register bank 59 stores the cursor starting positions X' and Y' corresponding to the X and Y values in the mouse processing section in FIG.
The area determination device 60 stores the register bank 5.
Using the contents of 7 and 59, it is determined whether the cursor is within the icon display area in the same way as 326 in FIG.
The control position 61 is for displaying icons and controlling the entire mouse processing section 49, and the initialization signal generator 62 generates an initialization signal for the control device 61. It is something to do. The system configured as described above performs the processes described in FIGS. 9 to 14.

〔Effect of the invention〕

As described in detail above, according to the present invention, it is possible to make the user understand the meaning of the icon, especially the content of the operation, much more easily than when a still image icon is used. In addition, the number of screens required for this purpose is not so large, only a small area called an icon is used, and there is no need to prepare a large-scale display mechanism or display data (but it is possible to realize video display, and the computer system This greatly contributes to improving the efficiency of processing.

[Brief explanation of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram of the principle of the present invention. FIG. 2 is a block diagram showing the overall concept of an embodiment of the video icon display method of the present invention. FIG. 3 is a block diagram showing an example of video display start and end operations. , Fig. 4 is a block diagram showing an example of operations during video display, Fig. 5 is a diagram showing an icon and screen-based embodiment, and Fig. 6 shows the concept of the second embodiment of the video icon display method. FIG. 7 is a block diagram showing an example of the icon display operation when the icon display areas overlap in the second example. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing details of data in each component in the example. Figure 9 is a flowchart of an embodiment of the overall processing of the mouse processing unit; Figure 10 is a flowchart of an embodiment of initialization processing of the mouse processing unit; Figure 12 is a flowchart of an embodiment of display processing; Figure 13 is a flowchart of an embodiment of icon check processing; and Figure 14 is a flowchart of an embodiment of start processing and next display processing. 15 is a flowchart of an embodiment of the termination process of the icon display mechanism, and FIG. 15 is a block diagram showing the configuration of the entire hardware system of the embodiment. 1... Display screen, 2a, 2b, . . . . . . Icon, 3
...Cursor, 4...Mouse, 8a, 8b, ...Screen base, 9a, 9
b, ... ... icon position information, 10 ...
Mouse processing unit, 11... icon display mechanism.

Claims (1)

[Claims] A plurality of icons (2a,
2b,...), and has a display area for the plurality of icons (
2a, 2b, ...) for moving a cursor (3) that points to any one of the plurality of icons (2a, 2b, ...). For each, there is an icon screen storage means (5) for storing a representative screen and a plurality of video screens, and a display screen (1) for the cursor (3) based on information from the mouse (4).
); and a cursor position detection means (6) for detecting the position on the cursor (3) detected by the cursor position detection means (6).
) is the position of the plurality of icons (2a, 2b,...)
, the representative screen stored in the icon screen storage means (5) is displayed in each icon display area on the display screen (1), and the cursor position detection means ( When the cursor position detected by 6) indicates one of the plurality of icons (2a, 2b,...), a plurality of video screen screens for the designated icon are specified for each video screen. 1. A video icon display method characterized by comprising an icon display means (7) for switching over and sequentially displaying the icons on the icon display area at certain time intervals, and displaying the representative screen for icons other than the icons.