GB2370740A

GB2370740A - Menu item selection

Info

Publication number: GB2370740A
Application number: GB0031707A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Magnus Gasslander; Johan Scott
Original assignee: Nokia Oyj
Current assignee: Nokia Oyj
Priority date: 2000-12-27
Filing date: 2000-12-27
Publication date: 2002-07-03
Also published as: WO2002052395A2; AU2002217121A1; EP1348155A2; GB0031707D0; WO2002052395A3

Abstract

A digital television system having a set-top box controlled by a remote control unit is used to access the Internet. Arrow keys on the remote control unit are used to navigate a focus around irregularly positioned hypertext links on a web page. If a down arrow key is pressed, web browser software determines weighted distances between a link in focus and links below it using an elliptical function. The distances are weighted so as to favour a link closest to being vertically collinear even though other links may be closer.

Description

Display generating device Description The present invention relates to a display generating device and has particular but not exclusive application to multimedia network terminals.

A number of electronic devices have graphical user interfaces (GUIs). Such devices include, for example, personal computers (PC), televisions and mobile telephones.

The user may interact with the device via the GUI using a user interface, for instance a touch sensitive pad, a keyboard, a mouse or a joystick. Many factors determine the most appropriate choice of user interface for a device, such as ease of use and speed of operation and the environment in which the device is used. The use of a mouse is suited to the selection of icons when using a desk-top personal computer. However, it is not so useful for a digital television set. For this, a remote control unit having several keys is more convenient.

However, there are problems with using key-or button-based control units, as will now be explained with reference to digital television.

Digital television systems provide a variety of new services as compared with analogue television. They allow the user to transmit and receive signals via a set-top box and to interact with service providers. The user may now access the Internet in a similar way that is already available on a PC. For example, a user may navigate web pages by selecting hypertext links. The process of selecting a particular link involves moving a focus between links and activating selection. In a PC-based system, this process is realised by positioning a mouse pointer over the link and pressing the mouse button. To indicate that the focus has moved to the link, the shape of the mouse pointer changes or the link is highlighted, for instance, by changing colour.

The set-top box/television system is controlled using a remote control unit, which is similar to that used in analogue television systems. The remote control is usually

provided with a set of arrow keys-up, down, right, left-allowing orthogonal movement about a menu.

Such a remote control unit provides a satisfactory means for selecting elements of the menu if the menu is arranged as a rectangular array along co-ordinates defined by the keys on the remote control. Elements in a column are selected by the use of up and down arrow keys, while elements along a row may be selected by use of right and left arrow keys. Thus, movement from one element to another is straightforward and intuitive.

However, such a remote control unit is not suited to the selection of irregularly positioned elements, such as hypertext links in a web page. Hypertext links may be represented by text or images which are not uniformly located on the page. British patent application no. GB 9930836. 3 describes a device which seeks to overcome this problem by generating an ordered array of navigable nodes such that each link is represented by at least one node. The user can intuitively and reversibly navigate around the array to reach and select links.

However, the arrangement of links may not be completely irregular. Links may be ordered in one direction but not another. For example, it is common to have a block of text in which is embedded several hypertext links. In this case horizontal movement between links using left and right arrow keys is straightforward since the text is arranged in rows. However, the links may not be vertically aligned. If a link in one row is in focus and there are two links in the row below, vertical movement using the down arrow key is more complicated since there are two links to chose from. Nevertheless, it is likely that the user will want to select the link which lies obviously or intuitively below the link in focus, even though it may not be the closer of the two links.

The present invention seeks to solve this problem.

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a generating device configured to generate signals for a graphical display in which a focus can be navigated between spaced, functional display regions such that they are individually

1 selected when the focus is moved thereto, comprising means for determining first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and means for selecting one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.

The means for determining said first and second weighted distances may be configured to receive respective coordinate information for said first, second and third functional display regions. The means for determining said first and second weighted distances may be arranged to execute a predetermined mathematical method on said coordinates. The predetermined mathematical method may include a mathematical function, such as elliptic or lemniscate function.

The device may be included in a multimedia network terminal, such as an internet enabled set-top box.

According to a second aspect of the present invention there is provided a method, in a generating device configured to generate signals for a graphical display in which a focus can be navigated between spaced, functional display regions such that they are individually selected when the focus is moved thereto, of operating said device, the method comprising determining first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and selecting one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.

According to a third aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of navigating a focus between spaced, functional display regions on a display device, the method comprising determining first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and selecting one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.

According to a fourth aspect of the present invention there is provided a computer program comprising computer code to make a computer configured to generate

signals for a graphical display in which a focus can be navigated between spaced, functional display regions such that they are individually selected when the focus is moved thereto execute procedure to determine first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and to select one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.

Embodiments of the present invention will now be described, by way of example, with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a schematic view of a set-top box and a television set; Figure 2 shows a web page having several hypertext links; Figure 3 shows the links of Figure 2 in isolation; Figure 4 shows displacements from a link in focus to the other links lying below; Figure 5 is flow diagram of the process by which a link is selected to be in focus; Figure 6 shows elliptical plots used to select a link; Figure 7 shows lemniscate plots used to select a link; Figure 8 shows elliptical plots with different constants; and Figure 9 shows lemniscate plots with different constants.

Referring to Figure 1, an embodiment of display generating device according to the present invention is a digital set-top box 1 which is connected to a display device in the form of a conventional television set 2. The set-top box 1 is controlled using a remote control unit 3 having up, down, right and left keys 4a, 4b, 4c, 4d and a select button 4e. In this case, up, down, right and left directions correspond to movement as seen on the television set 4.

The set-top box 1 comprises one or several input ports (not shown) including a port for a satellite antenna dish, a port for a terrestrial antenna, a port for a cable link and a port for a broadband internet connection and an output port (not shown) for connection to the television set. The set-top box 1 further comprises a microprocessor, memory, front-end tuner for filtering the signal, a video chip for rendering an image on the television set 2 and a user interface (not shown).

The set-top box 1 may be used to receive and decode digital television channels and transmit user information via a return channel. These channels are transmitted and received through a cable link, although links provided by satellite or terrestrial broadcast may also be used.

The set-top box 1 provides Internet services to the user, thus enabling the user to read e-mail and"surf the web". To access the web, the set-top box 1 loads and runs web browser software.

Referring to Figure 2, the web browser software is used navigate a web page 5 which comprises text 6 including first, second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth hypertext links 7u 72, 73, 74, 75, 76- In this example, the text 6 relates to the results of a search for the term"http". The first hypertext link 7a is a link back to a previous page. The second link 72 is a box

for entering a new search term. The third and fourth links 73, 74 are links to related web pages. The fifth link 75 is a link to a page relating to a different topic. The sixth link 76 is a link to an e-mail application. A focus 8 is set at the third link 73 and is highlighted in a different colour from the other links 71, 72, 74, 75, 76, The second, third and fourth links 72, 73, 74 lie in a row, as indicated by dotted lines.

Rows may be defined for example by defining a horizontal band and determining whether links contained therein constitute a one-dimensional array. In this case, a user can navigate between these links using right and left arrow keys 4c, 4d. Thus, to move the focus 8 from the third link 73 to the second link 72, the user presses the left arrow key 4d on the remote control unit 3. Similarly, to move the focus 8 from the third link 73 to the fourth link 74, the user presses the right arrow key 4c.

However, the third, fourth, fifth and sixth links 73, 74, 7,, 76duo not lie neatly in a column. Furthermore, the user is likely to want to move the focus 8 from the third link 73 to the sixth link 76 in preference to either of the fourth or fifth links 74, 75 even though those links are closer.

When the user presses the down arrow key 4b, the web browser software calculates weighted distances between the third focus 7) and each of the fourth, fifth and sixth links 74, 75, 76 respectively, weighted according their horizontal displacement from the third link 7,, and determines which of them is closest.

A process by which this is performed will now be described.

Referring to Figures 4 and 5, the user presses the down arrow key 4b. The web browser software initialises a current link counter i, sets a selected link variable s to

one and a focus-to-selected link distance variable rs2 to a predetermined value, for example to the square of the diagonal distance p across the page 5 (step Sil). In this example, the links 7 are numbered according to their position on the page 5, starting from the top left and finishing at the bottom right of the page 5. The browser first checks whether the current link 7, is the link in focus 8, namely whether i=f=3 (step S2). If it is, then the browser moves onto the next link 7,,, (step S3) otherwise it determines whether the current link 7, lies below the third link 73 (step S4). In this example, this is done by checking whether an upper edge 9, of the link 7, is below a lower edge 103 of the third link 73 which is in focus. It will be appreciated that other criteria may be used such as minimum vertical offsets between a y-midpoint 11, between upper and lower edges 91, 10, of the current link 7i and a y-midpoint II) between upper and lower edges 9), 10) of the third link 73. If the current link 7, does not lie below the link in focus 73, then the browser moves onto the next link 7, (step S3). In this example, the fourth, fifth and sixth links 7", 75, 76 lie below the third link 73.

The browser then measures horizontal and vertical displacements #xi, ; from the third link 73 to the current link 7,.

The horizontal displacement Ax, is measured from a x-midpoint 123 between leftmost and rightmost edges 133, 143 of the third link 73 to a selected point 15, of the current link 7,. If the x-midpoint 123 of the third link 73 lies between the leftmost and rightmost edges 13i, 14, of the current link 71, (step S5), then the selected point 15, is chosen so as to be vertically collinear with the x-midpoint 123

and the horizontal displacement Axai = 0 (step S6). If the current link 7, lies to right of the third link 73 such that the leftmost edge 13i of the current link 7 ; lies to the right of the x-midpoint 123 of the third link 73 (step S7), then the leftmost edge 13, is used to calculate the horizontal displacement #xi (step S8). Otherwise, the current link 7, lies to left of the third link 73 and the rightmost edge 14, is used to calculate the horizontal displacement Axi (step S9).

The vertical displacement Ay, is measured from the y-midpoint 113 of the third link

73 to the y-midpoint 11i of the current link 7, (step S10).

2 The browser calculates a weighted distance r, between the current link 7, and the third link 73 (step Sill). This is done using an elliptic function : r, = kAx ;- + Ay, where k is a constant. A value of k may be fixed by the software or defined by the user. Alternatively, it may be dynamically determined according to, for example the duration that the down arrow key 4b is pressed. The significance of the value of k will be described later.

2 The browser checks whether the weighted distance r, between the current link 7, is less than the focus-to-selected link distance variable r.' (step S12). If it is, then the 2 weighted distance reis stored in the focus-to-selected link distance variable rand the current link 7, is flagged as the selected link 7, (step S13), otherwise no values are stored and the browser simply moves onto the next link 71+1 (step S3). In this example, squared values of distance are computed and compared. It will be appreciated that proper values of distance may be computed although this will increase computing time.

The browser iterates through all the links (step S14). Once it has done this, the focus 8 moves to the selected link (step S15).

Referring to Figure 6, in order to help understand the purpose of using the elliptical function, first, second and third ellipses 1611 162, 163 are plotted for the sixth, fifth and fourth links 76, 75, 74 respectively using the elliptical function and respective 2 calculated values of r,. Each ellipse 16 is a contour plot of constant ri2. Thus, although the selected point 156 of the sixth link 76 is the furthest away from the midpoint 15) of the third link 73 in normal Euclidean space, i. e. it has the largest value of Ax ; + Ay, it has the least weighted distance, i. e. the lowest value of ka, 2 + Ayi2. Thus, the selected point 156 of the sixth link 76 lies on the on the first 2 ellipse 16, with the lowest value of r, 2. The elliptical function effectively transforms the x-y coordinates by scaling the x-coordinate by a factor 1//k.

Referring to Figure 7, fourth, fifth and sixth ellipses 163, 165, 166 are normalised plots of the elliptical function with values of k equal to 1, 2 and 4 respectively.

Thus, having a high value of k, tends to favour selection of links 7 which are substantially vertically collinear. It will be appreciated that rather than using a constant with k > 1 to multiply the horizontal displacement Au,', a constant with k < 1 to multiply the horizontal displacement Ay may be used.

It will also be appreciated that other functions may be used. One alternative is to use a lemniscate function :

r.'= (caxi'+ Ay,)'/ (caxi'-Ayi')

where c is a constant.

Referring to Figure 8, first and second lemniscate plots 17 172 are shown. In this example, the selected point 155 of the fifth link 75 is determined to be closest. In this example, for a chosen value of c, no value of r/can be computed and no plot can be traced which passes though the selected point 154 of the fourth link 74.

Referring to Figure 9, third, fourth and fifth normalised lemniscate plots 173, 174, 175 are shown having values of c equal to 1, 2 and 4 respectively.

It is preferable that an appropriate function with one or more suitable weighting constants be used so that the links which the user perceives should be selected are indeed chosen.

Although the embodiments hereinbefore described refer to selection of a link 7 below a link in focus by pressing a down arrow key 4b, it will be appreciated this apparatus and process may be used to select links 7 above the link in focus 8 by pressing the up arrow key 4a. The apparatus and process may also be used to select links to the left and the right of the link in focus, by weighting vertical displacements.

It will be appreciated that many modifications may be made to the embodiments hereinbefore described. For example, non-orthogonal directions and non-Cartesian coordinates may be used. The method may be used in conjunction with other method of navigating a web page using keys or buttons. Other platforms such as personal computers, game machine, personal digital assistant, wireless datapads or mobile telephone handset may be used.

Claims

Claims 1. A generating device configured to generate signals for a graphical display in which a focus can be navigated between spaced, functional display regions such that they are individually selected when the focus is moved thereto, comprising: means for determining first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and means for selecting one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.
2. A device according to claim 1, wherein the means for determining said first and second weighted distances is configured to receive respective coordinate information for said first, second and third functional display regions.
3. A device according to claim 2, wherein the means for determining said first and second weighted distances is arranged to execute a predetermined mathematical method on said coordinates.
4. A device according to claim 3, wherein said predetermined mathematical method includes a mathematical function.
5. A device according to claim 4, wherein the mathematical function is an elliptic function.
6. A device according to claim 4, wherein the mathematical function is a lemniscate function.
7. A generating device substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figures 1 to 7 of the accompanying drawings.
8. A multimedia network terminal including a device according to any preceding claim.
9. A multimedia network terminal according to claim 8, which is an internet enabled set-top box.
10. A method, in a generating device configured to generate signals for a graphical display in which a focus can be navigated between spaced, functional display regions such that they are individually selected when the focus is moved thereto, of operating said device, the method comprising determining first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and selecting one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.
11. A method of navigating a focus between spaced, functional display regions on a display device, the method comprising: determining first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and selecting one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.
12. A method of operating a generating device substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to Figures 1 to 7 of the accompanying drawings.
13. A computer program comprising computer code to make a computer configured to generate signals for a graphical display in which a focus can be navigated between spaced, functional display regions such that they are individually selected when the focus is moved thereto execute procedure: to determine first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and to select one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.
14. A generating device configured to generate signals for a graphical display in which a focus can be navigated between spaced, functional display regions such that they are individually selected when the focus is moved thereto, comprising: a first processor configured to determine first and second weighted distances between a first functional display region in focus and second and third functional display regions respectively and a second processor configured to select one of said second or third functional display regions in dependence upon said first and second weighted distances.
15. A device according to claim 14, wherein the first and second processors are unitary.