JP3060421B2 - Method and apparatus for dynamic marquee representation of text in a reduced field - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

[0001]

FIELD OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates generally to data processing techniques and, more particularly, to an improved front of screen display for efficiently presenting information.
n) The method and the device.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Recently, operating system programs for personal computers have been developed to provide a graphical user interface.
entation) whether the environmental program is included in it,
Alternatively, it is designed to work in conjunction with such a presentation environment program. For example, IBM OS /
Operating system programs such as 2 "
It includes a presentation manager, which is an environment presentation program. The “DOS” compliant program is created so that the graphical user interface provided by “Microsoft Windows 3.0” can be used. Graphical programs such as "Microsoft Windows 3.0"
Various presentation environment programs that provide a user interface allow the interaction between the user and the system to be performed using a conventional keyboard or using a pointing device such as a mouse. It has become. In the case of using a pointing device, a specific object being displayed is aimed at with the pointing device, and then the pointing device, that is, the button on the mouse or the like is operated, whereby A pre-programmed response will be activated.

One of the features of such a presentation environment program is its ability to present information in a rectangular area called a window. One window is presented on the display screen based on the coordinate data held in the window control buffer. The coordinate data is
This data specifies the positions of the top, left, right, and bottom sides of the window. In addition, a plurality of windows can be simultaneously displayed on one display screen. In this case, the window control buffer stores respective position coordinates corresponding to each of the plurality of windows. Are held as coordinate data. Furthermore, usually, a message or title is presented along the upper side of each window to be displayed on the display screen, and the message or title is displayed.
The purpose of the information to be displayed in each window is specified.

[0004] One feature common to various presentation environment programs, including the presentation environment program described above, is the ability to allow a user to adjust the size of the window. To adjust the size of the window, place the pointing device on one selected side of the window, operate the pointing device buttons, etc., and change the display position of the selected side. Try to lead to a new position on the display screen. According to this method, the user can selectively change the size of the window arbitrarily selected from the windows displayed on the display screen.

[0005]

However, in various conventional presentation environment programs such as the above-described presentation environment program, when the width of a selected window is reduced by a user, the window size of the selected window is reduced. If the width dimension is shorter than the length dimension of the message being presented along the top edge of the window, any portion of the message that extends beyond the newly selected area of the window is truncated. There was a problem that it would.

Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved screen presentation system for presenting a message in a window. It is a further object of the present invention to provide an improved message presentation scheme for presenting a message in a window that has been reduced in size until its width is reduced, rather than the length of the message to be presented. is there.

[0007]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The above objects, features, and advantages of the present invention, as well as other objects, features, and advantages, are provided by the present disclosure of a dynamic marquee representation of text in a reduced field. representati
on). The present invention solves the problem of how to display a text header unchanged on the screen even when the user selects a small screen width. According to the present invention, in order to solve this problem, first,
The head, for displaying the same text as before
Calculate the remaining width dimension of the line, and then, in the horizontally extending field remaining on the display screen, continuously add the same text horizontally Make it scroll.
However, if the newly selected size of that window is
The message header (ie the text header)
If the message header is large enough to display the entire message header, the message header is displayed in a static mode. On the other hand, if the newly selected size of the window has been reduced to less than the length of the text line to be displayed, then employing the present invention, the entire text may be converted to that text. It can be presented to the user in the header. It does so by dynamically and continuously scrolling the text horizontally within the display field with the reduced width dimension. Also, when scrolling text in a display field that has been reduced in width, if the user wants to stop or restart the scrolling, it can do so, It is also possible for the user to selectively reverse the direction of the dynamic horizontal scrolling of the text. In addition, it is possible to process both fixed spacing fonts and proportional spacing fonts.

[0008]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Embodiments of the present invention will be described below in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings. FIG. 1 shows a method 10 for performing a dynamic marquee representation of text in a reduced field.
FIG. 9 is a diagram showing a flowchart of the process for 0. Further, the pseudo code of Tables 1 and 2 shown below is shown by further enlarging the flowchart of FIG. The pseudocode in those tables is a program written in BASIC to implement one relatively simple embodiment of the present invention. In the method shown in the flowchart of FIG. 1, in step 102, a message 204 to be displayed in the window 202 shown in FIGS. 3 to 8 is obtained. In the workstation of FIG.
32 will store the message 204 to be presented at the top of the window 202. Then step 104
Then, the length dimension of the message 204 is calculated. Here, the unit of length used for calculating the length dimension may be the number of characters, and if the font used is a proportional spacing font, the number of pixels in the horizontal direction is used. The length of the message may be used, or some other unit indicating the length may be used.

Subsequently, in step 106 of the flowchart of FIG. 1, the current positions of the upper side, left side, right side, and bottom side of the window 202 are obtained. In this regard, in the workstation 400 shown in FIG. 8, the window control buffer 430 included in the memory 420 holds the coordinate data of each of the currently displayed windows 202, 202 ′, and 202 ″. The coordinate data stored here includes the positions of the top, left, right, and bottom sides of each window on the display screen.Step 108 calculates the width dimension of the window 202. The unit used to calculate the dimensions is
In step 104, among the units representing the number of characters, the number of pixels, and other appropriate lengths, the message 2
The unit is the same as the unit used when calculating the length dimension of the length 04.

Subsequently, at step 110, message 2
If the length dimension of 04 does not exceed the width dimension of window 202, the entire message 204 is displayed in the window. In this case, as shown in FIG. 2, for example, the window 201 has a maximum width of 80 digits, that is, the full width of the display area on the display screen. On the other hand, message 2
04 is 67 characters long and represents the expression 204A of FIG.
, That is, the entire message can be displayed in the window 201. In addition, in the state shown in FIG.
Only one window 201 is displayed. In contrast, in the workstation 400 of FIG. 8, the window 202 'is also shown in the display buffer 436 in the memory 420, and the window 202' is 28 columns wide, In it,
A text header 204 'having a width of 13 characters (that is, a length in the width direction of the window) is displayed. The display mode is the static mode, and the entire text header 204 'is displayed along the upper side of the window. Similarly, the workstation 40 of FIG.
The window 202 "shown in the display buffer 436 of the memory 420 of memory 0 is 16 columns wide and has a 5-digit width dimension therein.
4 "is displayed in the stationary mode along the upper side of the window. The program 100 in FIG.
0 and this is executed by the CPU 404 of the workstation of FIG. This program creates a text header 204 'in window 202'.
And text header 2 in window 202 "
04 "in the static mode.

Here, the description will be returned to FIG.
In step 12, if the length dimension of the message 204 exceeds the width dimension of the window 202, step 114
Then, a loop for continuously sliding the message 204 in the window 202 is started.
Since this can be easily understood by referring to FIGS. 7A and 7B, the description will be made with reference to those drawings. In FIG. 7 (a), at any instant, only a portion 204G of window 204
02, and the displayed portion is updated one after another. This update is performed by sampling portions of the message 204 that are shifted one by one and displaying them in the window 202 one after another. When the first character to be displayed is the J-th character of the message 204, if the width of the window 202 is W characters, W characters are sampled from the message 204 starting from the J-th character, Then, those W characters sampled are displayed in window 2
02 is displayed. Step 116 is a step of executing the above operation.

Subsequently, at step 118, message 2
04, the same operation as described above is repeatedly performed for the character following the J-th character (the (J + 1) -th character),
As a result, the next W characters shifted by one in the message 204 are displayed in the window 202. Thus, the sequential presentation operation can be more easily understood by referring to a series of figures in FIGS. In FIG. 3, a window 202 is displayed in the display area 200, and the width of the window 202 is 25 characters. On the other hand, since the message 204 has a length dimension of 67 characters, this message 2
It is impossible to display the entire area 04 along the upper side of the window 202. The message 204 shown in FIG.
Is a part displayed during execution of the first step among steps corresponding to step 116 in the flowchart of FIG. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 4, starting from the character (the second character) next to the J-th (that is, the first) character in the message 204, 2
The five characters are displayed on the window 20 as the display portion 204C.
2 is displayed. Subsequently, similarly, as shown in FIG. 5A, 25 characters starting from the character “n” in the word “Control” are assigned to the message 2
04 as a display portion 204D of the window 20
2 is displayed. Subsequently, as shown in FIG.
A part 204E of the message 204 is displayed.
Subsequently, as shown in FIG.
Is displayed. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 5D, a portion 204G of the message 204 is displayed. Between (d) and (e) of FIG. 5, the same sampling operation as described above is repeatedly performed a plurality of times. Then, by executing them and sampling a character string starting with the letter “i” in the word “communications”, as shown in FIG. Is displayed in the portion 204H. In the state of FIG. 5E, as can be seen from the figure,
The end of the message 204 has been reached, and "program
ms "is displayed in its entirety.

In this method, if so far, the sampling portion is circulated as shown in FIGS. 7A and 7B. Therefore, when the end of the message 204 is reached in the window 202 displaying the sampling portion, from the beginning of the message 204, that is, from the first word "Control", as shown in FIG. Sampling goes on. This point will be described in more detail with reference to FIGS. 6A to 6E. In the state shown in FIG.
4 is displayed in the window 202. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 6B, a portion 204J of the message 204 is displayed in the window 202. Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 6C, a portion 204K of the message 204 is displayed on the window 20.
In this state, the first character “C” of the first word “Control” is displayed at the right end of the window 202 as shown in the figure.
Subsequently, as shown in FIG. 6D, a portion 204L of the message 204 is displayed in the window 202, and in this state, as shown in FIG. “Control”
The first two characters “C” and “o” are displayed on the right end of the window 202. Subsequently, the above process is executed again, and as shown in FIG. 6E, a portion 204M of the message 204 is displayed, and thereafter, the processes described above are executed one after another.

In the method of FIG. 1, step 120 is subsequently executed. In step 120, when the last character of the message is displayed, the display returns to the first character of the message again and performs the display. Step. Further, in step 122, the message 204 is slid in the window 202 by continuously and repeatedly performing the above-described operations in a loop, and the sliding process includes the step of changing the dynamic expression of the message. If the user wants to continue, it can be continued. This presentation, which dynamically presents the message 204 in the narrow window 202, can also be selectively stopped and restarted by the user. An appropriate control signal for stopping and restarting the dynamic scrolling of the message may be input by a pointing device or a keyboard input.

If the character used for presentation is a character in the proportional spacing format, the length of the character string must be re-measured every time the character string of the message 204 is shifted by one character, and When the next character following the character string can enter the window 202, the character is displayed.

Tables 1 and 2 below show the pseudo-code referred to above, which may be the case for performing a dynamic marquee representation of text in a reduced field in accordance with the present invention. This is a BASIC program for performing a relatively simple operation. Tables 1 and 2 together represent one program.

[Table 1]

[Table 2]

The workstation 400 shown in FIG. 8 has a personal computer architecture. The architecture includes a bus 402, which stores memory 420 and CPU 404.
And optional coprocessor 406 and DASD 40
8, a display / keyboard adapter 410,
It is connected to a LAN interface 412, other I / O adapters 414, and a mouse adapter 416. Also, its memory 42 of the workstation 400
0 is divided into a plurality of sections, namely, a window control buffer 430, a message buffer 432, a display buffer 436, a dynamic marquee text display program 100, and a window presentation environment program 438 (for example, IBM Corporation). And an operating system program 440 (for example, an OS / 2 operating system program of IBM Corporation). Then, the CPU 404 executes the sequence of instructions in the program 100 to execute the method described in the flowchart of FIG. 1, thereby achieving the execution result of the present invention described above.

[0018]

According to the present invention, as described above, even if the user selects a small screen width, a text header of the same length can be displayed on the screen. Can be.

[Brief description of the drawings]

FIG. 1 is a flowchart showing a series of operation steps when implementing a dynamic marquee expression according to the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a diagram illustrating a presentation mode when a header text is statically presented in a window area having a width dimension wider than the length dimension of the header text.

FIG. 3 is a diagram showing a presentation mode when a header text is horizontally and sequentially scroll-presented in a window area having a width smaller than the length of the header text.

FIG. 4 is a diagram showing a presentation mode when the header text is presented sequentially in the horizontal direction in a window area having a width smaller than the length of the header text, and is a presentation state following FIG. 3; FIG.

FIG. 5 is a diagram showing a presentation mode when the header text is horizontally and sequentially scroll-presented in a window area having a width smaller than the length of the header text, and is a presentation state following FIG. 4; FIG.

FIG. 6 is a diagram showing a presentation mode in which a header text is sequentially presented in a window area having a width smaller than the length of the header text in the horizontal direction, and is a presentation state following FIG. 5; FIG.

FIG. 7 is a diagram illustrating the principle of a sliding window for continuously and repeatedly displaying header text in a window area having a width smaller than the length of the header text.

FIG. 8 is a schematic diagram of a workstation programmed for dynamic marquee text display in accordance with the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 200 display area 202, 202 ', 202 "window 204, 204', 204" message 204A-104M display part of message 400 workstation 404 CPU 420 memory 430 window control buffer 432 message buffer 436 display buffer 438 window presentation Environmental program

 ──────────────────────────────────────────────────続 き Continued on the front page (72) Inventor Donald Earl Hyatt 4006, Jeffrey Street, Silver Spring, MD 20906 USA

Claims (3)

(57) [Claims] 1. A display method for displaying a long text message in a narrow window area in a data processing system, the method comprising the steps of: a) sending a text message comprising a plurality of first characters to a data processing device; Storing; b) calculating a first length dimension of the text message; c) for the window area to be displayed by the data processing device, a value of a left position and a right position of the window area. Inputting a value, d) calculating a width dimension of the window area, and e) comparing the first length dimension with the width dimension to determine that the first length dimension is the width dimension. The first is not exceeded
Displaying the number of characters in the window area; and f) replacing the second number of characters in the text message if the first length dimension exceeds the width dimension. Starting a repetitive loop that continuously displays in the window area, wherein the second number of characters is less than the first number of characters and the second length is a length dimension of a plurality of characters of the second number of characters. Starting from a first character position in the text message, the second number of characters of the text message being displayed in the window. Displaying in the area; and h) continuing to the first in the text message.
Starting at a character position after the character position and displaying the second number of characters of the text message in the window area; and c) successively executing the iterative loop; Displaying the second number of characters of the text message continuously in the window, whereby the first number of characters of the text message are displayed. Wherein the display position is moved continuously over the width of the window area. 2. A data processing system for displaying a long text message in a narrow window area, the storage being for storing a text message consisting of a first number of characters in a data processing device. Means, coupled to the storage means, for calculating a first length dimension of the text message; and for the window area displayed by the data processing device, a value of a left position of the window area. Input means for inputting a value of the first position and the value of the right position, and the calculating means is coupled to the input means for calculating a width dimension of the window area, and the first length is coupled to the calculating means. The first dimension is compared with the width dimension, and if the first length dimension does not exceed the width dimension, the plurality of characters of the first number of characters are replaced with the wi Comparing means for displaying in the dough area; and a plurality of characters of the second number of characters of the text message coupled to the storage means when the first length dimension exceeds the width dimension. For initiating a repetitive loop for continuously displaying in the window area, wherein the second number of characters is less than the first number of characters and the second number of characters of the second number of characters is the second number of characters. Loop means for preventing a length dimension from exceeding the width dimension, the loop means starting from a first character position in the text message and starting from a second character position in the text message. Displaying a plurality of characters in the window area in a number of characters, the loop means continuing from another character position after the first character position in the text message. Displaying the second number of characters of the text message in the window area, the loop means continuously executing the repetitive loop, and The second number of characters are displayed consecutively in the window, so that the display position of the first number of characters of the text message spans the width of the window area. A data processing system that moves continuously. 3. A method for displaying a long text message in a narrow window area in a data processing system, the method comprising the steps of: a) sending a text message comprising a first number of variable spacing characters to a data message; Storing in a processing device; b) calculating a first length dimension of the text message; c) for the window region to be displayed by the data processing device, a value of a left position of the window region; Inputting a value at the right position; d) calculating a width dimension of the window area; e) comparing the first length dimension with the width dimension to determine that the first length dimension is If the width is not exceeded, the first
Displaying the number of characters in the window area; and f) replacing the second number of characters in the text message if the first length dimension exceeds the width dimension. Starting a repetitive loop that continuously displays in the window area, wherein the second number of characters is less than the first number of characters, and the length dimension of the plurality of characters of the second number of letters defines the width dimension. G) starting from the first character position in the text message and forming a first character quantity of the text message having a length dimension not exceeding the width dimension. Displaying two or more characters in the window area; and h) successively displaying the first character in the text message.
Starting from another character position after the character position, a plurality of the characters having the second number of characters of the text message and having a second character amount of a length dimension not exceeding the width dimension are included in the window area. And b) successively executing the iterative loop to place, within the window, the second number of characters of the text message having a length dimension not exceeding the width dimension. Displaying continuously, whereby the display position of the first number of characters of the text message is continuously moved across the width of the window area. A display method.