JPH1027086A - Display device - Google Patents

Abstract

PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To provide a display device which can display as much reference information as possible without being restricted by the shapes or sizes of windows, displaying areas of additional information, etc., nor deteriorating the visibility, and, at the same time, can minimize the omission of information displayed on an operational screen. SOLUTION: When the display of reference information is instructed, the window management data used for the current window management are transferred to a second window management data holding means 4b from a first window management data holding means 4a. When the the reference information is displayed, window management is performed based on the window management data held by the second holding means 4b. The transferred window management data are changed to those suitable for displaying the reference information. The information generated by an application 6 for reference is displayed in the part of the background section which is not concealed by the window.

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a display device that performs multi-window display, and more particularly to a display device suitable for displaying reference information in an operation of an information processing device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art In recent years, information processing apparatuses capable of performing display using an overlap type multi-window system have been widely used. In such an information processing apparatus that performs display using the multi-window method, it is possible to open another window at the same time as the window of the operation screen and use it as a reference screen.

[0003] However, even if the size of the display or screen can be virtually infinite, it is physically limited, so that information that can be displayed at one time is limited. For this reason, by overlapping, the reference information of the lower window is hidden, and it is necessary to switch the upper / lower relationship, and the operability is deteriorated.

[0004] Also, by reducing characters and figures,
In some cases, the amount of information that can be displayed can be increased, but the visibility is poor, and when a reduced character or figure is the operation target, the operability with a pointing device such as a mouse is deteriorated. There was a disadvantage.

[0005] On the other hand, in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 63-262719, when a plurality of windows are overlapped, text in a window below another window is assigned only to a visible portion, so that a sentence is written. There is disclosed a method that can be read as "." Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 1-76114 discloses a method in which the size and position of a plurality of overlapping windows are changed by a simple instruction and rearranged so as not to overlap. Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 2-28716 discloses a reference information display device that changes the position of a window hidden below to a position not overlapping when a new window is opened. Further, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. Hei 7-244870 discloses reference information display devices for restricting the operation of changing the size of a window on the operation screen so that the reference screen is not hidden.

[0006]

However, in the conventional window display method, it is assumed that the reference information is displayed in the window. Therefore, the area in which the reference information can be displayed is limited by the shape, size, or window of the window. Is limited by the display area of the additional information such as the title bar, and unless the operation screen is resized or reduced, the display area of the reference information cannot be taken as much as necessary, resulting in poor operability. There was a problem.

Therefore, the present invention solves the above-mentioned conventional problems, and does not limit the display area of the additional information such as the shape and size of the window, and reduces the visibility as much as possible without reducing the visibility. An object of the present invention is to provide a display device that can display reference information and the like, and that can minimize loss of display information on an operation screen.

[0008]

According to the present invention, in order to achieve the above object, an output of an application is displayed on a display device which displays an overlapping window in front of a single background portion. Means for displaying the
Means for preparing information related to the application in response to an operation in the window of the application, and means for displaying information related to the application in a portion of the background portion not hidden by the window. I have to.

According to this configuration, reference information and the like are added to the background portion.
Since the information related to the application is displayed, the information is not restricted by the shape and size of the window, the title bar in the window, and the like, and much information can be displayed more clearly.

In this configuration, when displaying information related to the application, a window other than the window of the application may not be displayed. Further, when displaying information related to the application, the window may not be displayed except for the window of the application and a window that assists operations in the window of the application. Further, when there is no space for displaying information related to the window in a portion of the background that is not hidden by the window, the size of the window being displayed is changed to secure a sufficient space. You may.

According to the present invention, in order to achieve the above object, a display means for displaying an output of an application in a window on a display device, and a window for displaying information related to the application, And means for switching the mode in which is displayed.

In this configuration, when the information related to the application is displayed, the information is displayed in a display mode suitable for the information. Therefore, the information related to the application can be displayed without sacrificing the convenience of the normal display. Can be displayed in a more preferable manner for the user.

According to the present invention, in order to achieve the above-mentioned object, a display device for displaying an overlap-type window has means for displaying an output of an application in the window, and means for responding to an operation in the window of the application. Means for preparing information related to the application, means for holding first window management data and second window management data, respectively, and means for storing the information related to the application when the information related to the application is not displayed. Means for managing the window using the window management data and displaying the information related to the application using the second window management data.

In this configuration, individual window management data is used when information related to the application is displayed and when information is not displayed, so that the application can be displayed without sacrificing the convenience of normal display. Related information can be displayed in a more preferable manner for the user.

[0015]

Embodiments of the present invention will be described below with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 shows a basic configuration of an information processing apparatus including a display device according to the present invention.

In FIG. 1, an input means 1 is for inputting and pointing data to an information processing apparatus, and comprises input devices such as a keyboard, a mouse, a light pen, a digitizer, and an image scanner. In this embodiment, input is performed using a keyboard and a mouse.

The event management means 2 is provided for inputting data from an input means such as a key-down event, for changing the internal state of the information processing apparatus, for example, when the hidden part is visible by moving the window. It manages events such as passing update events to each application.

The reference application activating means 3 activates a reference application for outputting reference information such as online help. Note that, as long as the start event and the end event can be sent to the reference application, the reference application activation unit 3 may be configured as a part of the event management unit 2 instead of as an independent unit.

The window management means 4 manages the drawing of the outer frame of the window on the basis of the settings of the window size, position, window type and the like and displays them on the display means 7. Is composed of a first window management data holding unit 4a and a second window management data holding unit 4b. The first window management data holding unit 4a holds setting values such as a window size, a position, and a window type in a normal display state. Second window management data holding means 4
b is the window size in the display state of the reference information,
Holds setting values such as position and window type.

The above-mentioned reference application activating means 3
And the window management means 4 are portions that execute a process of displaying reference information, and this portion is indicated by a dotted line 10.

The applications 5 are individual programs to be operated by the user, and a plurality of applications 5 may be started. The reference application 6 is a program that outputs information to be referred to when operating the application 5 to be operated. For example, online help or the like is equivalent, and a program that displays the result of preprocessing may be used. .

The display means 7 comprises a CRT (cathode ray tube), a liquid crystal display and the like, and displays the output of various applications and system programs under the control of the window management means 4.

Next, display processing of reference information will be described. FIG. 2 explains the operation of displaying the reference information. In FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, when the reference information display process is started by an instruction from the user using the input unit 1 such as a help button, first, the first window management data holding unit 4a sends the second window management data holding unit. Means 4b
Window management data relating to the currently displayed window is copied (S1). Next, using the window management data on the second window management data holding unit 4b, the attributes of the window are changed so that the margin of the window, that is, the background portion is an integrated area (S2). Next, the application for outputting the reference information is started by the reference application starting unit 3 (S3), and the output reference information is allocated to the margin of the window (S4). Subsequently, an operation input is received (S
5) It is determined whether there is an instruction to cancel the reference state (S
6) If there is no instruction to cancel the reference state (NO), the process returns to step 5 to perform a process according to the operation input, and further accepts the operation input. If there is an instruction to cancel the reference state (YES), the reference application is terminated (S7), and the display is returned to the state prior to the activation of the reference information display processing (S8). Note that the state according to the state before the reference information display processing is activated is a state in which the processing is performed in such a manner that the operation input received in the reference state is the operation received in the normal state.

Next, the window attribute change processing (S
2) will be described. FIG. 3 shows a state of the screen before displaying the reference information. In the example of FIG. 3, three windows are displayed. In the following, the origin is at the upper left of the screen, the X axis is the horizontal direction, the Y axis is the vertical direction, the upper left coordinate of the screen is (0, 0), and the lower right coordinate is (1280,
800).

FIG. 4 shows a window attribute changing process (S2).
In this figure, first, the number of windows is checked (S11). If there are a plurality of displayed windows (NO), a window is selected (S12), and only one window is displayed. If (YES)
Determines whether the size of the window exceeds the maximum value (S13), if it does (YES), performs processing to determine the display range (S14), and if it does not (NO), It returns to the main routine of FIG.

The window selected in step S12 is a window that can be edited without changing the state,
That is, the active window. For example, when three windows are displayed, immediately after the window management data is copied from the first window management data holding unit 4a to the second window management data holding unit 4b (S11), the second window management data holding unit 4
In b, a window management data table as shown in FIG. 5 is stored. Then, the active window is determined and only the window management data of the active window is left.

The active window depends on the implementation of the window system. There are two main ways to implement a window system. One of them is that an editable window is always in the foreground, and active windows and inactive windows are displayed even if they do not overlap. Different things,
The other is that a caret (pointer indicating a character editing position) is displayed only in an editable window.
In either case, it is easy to detect the active window, such as selecting the foreground window as the active window and selecting the window displaying the caret in the latter.

In this embodiment, for example, it is assumed that the foreground window is the active window and is at the top of the window management data table. Note that the position of the window indicates the coordinates of the upper left corner of the window.

As a result of the window selection processing, as shown in FIG. 6, a window management data table of only one row is obtained.

Subsequently, in step S13, it is determined whether or not the window size is too large. If the window size is too large, the display range is determined in step S14. In this step, when the size of the window is, for example, the entire screen, there is no area for displaying the reference information. Therefore, a process for changing the size of the window and creating an area for displaying the reference information is performed.

In this embodiment (flowchart of FIG. 4), a method is used in which the number of windows is limited to one. However, in addition to this method, the total area of the displayed window is obtained and the reference information is displayed. If you can secure the area,
It is also possible to adopt a method of rearranging all windows and displaying reference information in a margin. In this case, if the total area is too large, in order to secure an area for displaying the reference information, first, the display is stopped from the rear window, and even the remaining one window is too large and the window is too large. When the reference information cannot be displayed, the size can be changed in the same manner as when the number of windows is limited to one from the beginning.

FIG. 7 shows a display example when the size of the window is too large. In this case, as shown in FIG. 8, the user instructs the display range (dotted line), or automatically determines that the caret is in the center based on the position of the caret being edited, for example, Control to display the dynamic range.

When the former user designates a display range, there are a method of designating a start point and an end point of a rectangle indicating a display range, a method of moving a frame indicating a maximum displayable range to a position desired by the user, and the like. .

In the method of designating the start point and the end point of the rectangle, for example, after designating the upper left point as the start point, when designating the lower right point as the end point, the mouse cursor moves beyond the maximum displayable range. Add a restriction so that it does not move. The simplest way to limit is to set a maximum value for both the width and height of the window,
In addition, there is a method of setting the maximum area and monitoring the movement of the mouse cursor so that the product of the width and height of the window does not exceed the maximum area.

The method of moving the frame can be realized by, for example, displaying a frame indicating the maximum displayable range with a dotted line and moving the frame to a desired position using a mouse cursor as shown in FIG.

When the determination is automatically made based on the position of the caret being edited, the display range is determined so that the center of the maximum displayable frame M matches the center of the caret Ca as shown in FIG. I do. Here, as shown in FIG. 10, when the caret Ca is placed at the center, the maximum displayable frame M
May exceed the end W of the content displayed in the window. In this case, the position of the maximum displayable frame M is aligned with the end W of the content so that the display area is used effectively.

FIG. 11 shows an example in which the window of FIG. 8 is changed to a partial display, and the position of the window is changed. To unify the window position, there is a method of always moving to the same position, for example, the upper left, or a method of moving to the nearest position of the four corners of the screen to reduce the movement of the line of sight. In the embodiment, the latter method is used.

Specifically, the distance between the lower right of the screen and the lower right of the window after resizing, the distance between the upper right of the screen and the upper right of the window after resizing, the lower left of the screen and the lower left of the window after the resizing are changed. The distance and the distance between the upper left corner of the screen and the upper left corner of the resized window are examined. The distance between the lower right corner of the screen and the lower right corner of the resized window is the smallest. This is an example of moving the window to the lower right of the screen.

Next, the background portion allocation processing in FIG. 2 will be described. When allocating reference information to the margin, FIG.
As shown in FIG. 2, when the reference information is a character string, the reference information is allocated by performing a character filling process according to the margin width. The character filling process is described in, for example,
It can be realized by the technology disclosed in Japanese Patent No. 22773 or the like. In the example shown in the figure, two regions A having different widths,
Since there is B, first, a character filling process is performed on the region A, and after the region A is full of characters, a character filling process is also performed on the region B.

If the reference information includes a chart,
As shown in FIG. 13, the reference information can be easily allocated by performing the character filling process on the blank areas A, B, and C after allocating the chart.

FIG. 14 shows an example of a display screen in a state where the process of allocating the reference information to the margin is completed.
In the figure, the upper right of the screen is a control bar for reference information, which includes a page feed button and a scroll bar when the entire reference information cannot be allocated, a button for canceling the reference state, and the like. Here, when the page feed is instructed, the page feed is realized by performing the process of allocating the reference information from the first data that could not be allocated starting from the upper left of the margin.

In the case of scrolling, as shown in FIG. 16, the chart is moved up by one row, and reference information is allocated starting from the top left margin of the data starting from the head of the second row. Scrolling is realized.

When the size of the window is changed while the reference information is displayed, as shown in FIG. 15, similarly to the normal display state, the window frame or the like is designated by the mouse cursor, and the mouse button called dragging is performed. The mouse cursor is moved by, for example, moving in the direction of a dotted arrow while holding down. In the direction in which the operation screen is expanded, the moving range of the mouse cursor is limited so that reference information cannot be displayed. There is no special restriction on the direction in which the operation screen is shrunk, and the mouse must not be smaller than the minimum size of the window specified by the information processing device itself or the application processing the contents displayed in the window. What is necessary is just to limit the moving range of the cursor.

When the size of the window is changed,
Since the margin area changes,
Reference information is reallocated by the processing shown in FIGS. 12 to 14 described above.

FIG. 17 shows an example in which a plurality of windows are involved in an operation for one application. In FIG. 17, two windows called a "palette" and a "shell tool" are provided as auxiliary windows for the window "document". One window is displayed.

In this case, as shown in FIG. 18, the window management data table stored in the second window management data holding means 4b immediately after being copied from the first window management data holding means 4a contains window information as application information. By holding the application number to which this belongs, the involved window can be easily determined. Further, as application information, data for distinguishing auxiliary windows, such as a tool palette and a color palette, may be added. In the example shown in the figure, the window titled "Palette" is at the front, and the window titled "Document" has the same application number as the window titled "Palette".
These two windows are selected. As a result, FIG. 19 shows an example in which these two windows are moved to the four corners of the screen, for example, to the upper left and upper right.

FIG. 2 shows an example in which one of the three windows shown in FIG. 3 and FIG.
0 is shown. In this embodiment, the title bar of the window is a pop-up menu 8 as a window switching means, and a window management data table held in the first window management data holding means 4a which is a source of the window management data table in FIG. Is read and displayed. Switching of the window can be easily realized by copying the data of the window of the selected title into the window management data table held in the second window management data holding means 4b.

For example, when the window titled "Mail Tool" is selected by the pop-up menu 8, the state is switched to "Mail Tool" as shown in FIG. The reference information is similarly allocated to the new margin.

In order to release the reference state in FIG. 2, in this embodiment, the data to be updated by the application is held at the address and is directly rewritten. Therefore, the reference application is terminated and the first window management data is held. The original display state can be easily restored by redrawing the screen using the window management data table held in the means 4a.

The data to be updated by the application at the start of the reference information display processing is transferred from the window management data table held in the first window management data holding means 4a in the actual state to the second window management data holding means 4b. When copying to the held window management data table, the updated data is transferred from the window management data table held in the second window management data holding unit 4b to the first window management data holding unit 4a.
May be copied to the window management data table held in the window, and then the screen may be redrawn.

[0051]

As described above, according to the present invention, for example, a minimum required window is displayed or the size of the window is changed to secure a screen space not hidden by the window as much as possible. However, since information related to the application is displayed by using the entire surface of the window, it is limited by a window shape, a minimum width and a minimum height of the window, or a display area of additional information such as a window title bar. And as much reference information as possible can be displayed without lowering visibility.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a block diagram showing a basic configuration of an information processing apparatus according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a flowchart showing an outline of a reference information display process according to the embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 3 is a screen diagram showing an example of a screen before displaying reference information.

FIG. 4 is a flowchart showing an outline of a window attribute changing process of FIG. 2;

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing an example of a window management data table copied to a second window management data holding unit on the screen of FIG. 3;

FIG. 6 shows a second window when only one window is selected.
FIG. 4 is a diagram illustrating an example of a window management data table of a window management data holding unit.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating a display example when a window size is too large.

FIG. 8 is a diagram illustrating an example in which a user designates a display range.

FIG. 9 is a diagram illustrating an example of determining a display area of a window based on the position of a caret when the window is too large.

FIG. 10 is a diagram showing an example in which the display area of the window is outside the edge of the display content in FIG. 9;

FIG. 11 is a diagram showing an example in which the window of FIG. 8 is changed to a partial display and the position of the window is changed.

FIG. 12 is a diagram illustrating an example of a process of assigning reference information to a margin.

FIG. 13 is a diagram illustrating an example in which a character table is allocated and then a character filling process is performed in a margin thereof.

FIG. 14 is a diagram illustrating an example of a state in which a process of allocating reference information to a margin is completed.

FIG. 15 is a diagram illustrating an example in which a window size is changed while reference information is displayed.

FIG. 16 is a diagram showing an example in which reference information is scrolled by one line in FIG. 14;

FIG. 17 is a diagram illustrating an example in which a plurality of windows are involved in an operation for one application.

FIG. 18 is a diagram illustrating an example in which an application number to which a window belongs is held in a window management data table.

FIG. 19 is a diagram showing an example in which two windows are left and moved to four corners of the screen.

FIG. 20 is a diagram showing an example in which a pop-up menu is displayed so that windows can be switched in an example in which one window is left from the three windows shown in FIGS. 3 and 5;

FIG. 21 is a diagram illustrating an example in which the window is switched to a window titled “mail tool” in FIG. 20;

[Description of Signs] 1 input means 2 event management means 3 reference application starting means 4 window management means 4a first window management data holding means 4b second window management data holding means 5 application 6 reference application 7 display means

Claims (6)

[Claims] 1. A display device for displaying an overlap-type window in front of a single background portion, means for displaying an output of an application in the window, and an application associated with the application in response to an operation in the window of the application. A display device comprising: means for preparing information to be performed; and means for displaying information related to the application in a portion of the background portion that is not hidden by the window. 2. The display device according to claim 1, wherein a window other than a window of the application is not displayed when displaying information related to the application. 3. The display device according to claim 1, wherein when displaying information related to the application, no window is displayed except for a window of the application and a window that assists operations in the window of the application. . 4. When there is no space for displaying information related to the window in a portion of the background not hidden by the window, the size of the window being displayed is changed to secure a sufficient space. The display device according to claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein 5. A display device comprising: means for displaying an output of an application in a window; and means for switching a mode for displaying the window when displaying information related to the application. 6. A display device for displaying an overlap-type window, comprising: means for displaying an output of an application in the window; means for preparing information related to the application in response to an operation of the application in the window; Means for holding the first window management data and the second window management data, respectively, when the information related to the application is not displayed, the window is managed using the first window management data, Means for managing the window using the second window management data when displaying information related to the application.